However, here is what I have so far - I hope you enjoy it. Apologies for the roughness of it.
Aerial had been fortunate enough to find an umbrella dumped in the dustbin outside the house.
Wonky it might have been, but it was doing an excellent job of keeping the blood raining down from the ceiling off of her clothes.
“Now are you sure Mrs Budberry, that you haven’t upset anyone recently?” She asked the stout middle aged women in the paisley wading suit beside her.
The women were currently standing in what used to be Mrs Budburry's sitting room. It had been a nice room once – plump cushions, lampshades with tassels, that sort of thing. Not to Aerial’s taste but not bad.
Now it was a ruin.
The first thing that hit you was the smell, the fresh copper tang merely highlighting the old, rank odour of rotting blood beneath. The once cream walls were layered in streaks of old, new, wet, dried blood. Once, in biology class, Aerial had had to cut open a cow’s heart and the purple, brown redness of the walls reminded her uncomfortably of the hearts centre.
There was so much blood that the carpet had become saturated with it – although Aerial had come prepared she could feel the soggy dampness of the carpet sucking at her wellies – as if it had become a marshland bog, eager to suck her into it’s grotty, 60 pile depth.
And the blood rain never ceased its quiet malicious pitter-patter over the room.
Yes, this was a pretty nasty curse.
‘Is there anything you can do Ms Aerial?’ Mrs Budberry asked anxiously.
‘To be honest ma’am. I’m surprised you haven’t left already.’ Aerial said frankly.
“Well, of course I sent the children away immediately. And Mr Budberry is staying with a, a friend.’ Aerial noted the hesitation.
“Why did you stay?”
Mrs Budberry looked at her as if she were mad. “This is my home.”
At that moment, a doily on the arm of one of the chairs, succumbed to the weight of its saturation and slid off, splashing into the carpet below.
Aerial watch the small ripples it caused in the carpet.
“This is my home.” Mrs Budberry said again quietly. “I worked hard on it. To me it is an accomplishment – a visible monument to the life I spent so long building. I will not let a mere nasty practical joke drive me out of it.’
“Do you think your husband’s mistress did this? Does she want the house?’
Mrs Budberry gasped as if I’d slapped her. Put an English woman in a house with a haunted room and she’ll barely bat an eye. Mention her husband’s infidelity and you’re lucky if you come away with all your teeth.
Fortunately for Aerial’s teeth, Mrs Budberry was made of stern stuff. After a few moments she managed, fairly steadily, to answer;
‘No, Marilyn is not interested in being a wife – she merely wants to be kept. You might call her a professional mistress.’ At this Mrs Budberry gave a wry smile. ‘Arrangements have been made in the event of… something happening. She would not upset the balance like this; she would have too much to lose.’
“I see.” Aerial pondered on this. “This is a pretty nasty piece of work – I can undo it, but there’s no guarantee that the person who cast it won’t just try something else. I’m a Hexer; protection work isn’t really my thing. I work on offence, not defence.”
“If you can just get it to stop, I will be grateful.” Mrs Budberry promised. “I will deal with the culprit, whoever it is, but I just want my house back.”
Aerial nodded. “Even when it stops, the blood that’s here won’t go. You’ll need to get it stripped and scrubbed. I recommend a professional crime scene cleaning squad for that – there’s no guarantee that some of this blood isn’t contaminated in some way. It’s not deliberately – I would have felt it in the curse, but this blood has to have come from somewhere and who knows where the caster summoned it from. I’ll leave you a few numbers if you like. It’ll be pricey though.’
Mrs Budberry just nodded.
Aerial sighed. “Time to get to work then. If you would just step outside Mrs Budberry, you can watch from the door but I’m not sure how messy this will be.”
Aerial listened to Mrs Budberry squelching away, and then pulled out a small portable TV from her pocket. It didn’t look anything like the modern TV’s nowadays – in fact, it looked more like what people though portable TV’s would look like back in the era of the original Star Trek. Aerial pulled out the analogue antennae and started to tune it in. Suddenly the rooms was filled the screams of the damned, the dying and the tormented, it was as if Aerial had suddenly opened a channel to the deepest pits of hell.
Aerial gave the TV a few sharp shakes and the noise abruptly cut off.
“Sorry about that Mrs Budberry. Little buggers always try to pull that. They think it makes them sound professional or something.”
“Oh.” Came a faint response from the door.
“Quit it guys.” Aerial muttered to the TV. “Or no dead man’s fingers for you tonight.”
The small TV gave a hiss and crackle of static and then fell into a somewhat sulky silence.
“This whole room is warped with the curse. It’s hard to see where it started from. Mrs Budberry” Aerial called out. “Please do not step inside the room whatever you do. This will be quite dangerous to you.”
And with that, Aerial pulled the electricity out of the walls and sent it flooding through the room.
In the olden days wizards could call all sorts of elements to their aid, fire, water, stone. She imagined that her talent to pull electricity was similar to those who called lightening (not that she’d ever try such a dangerous stunt). These days, there weren’t any wizards left – no one seemed to be born with that much talent anymore. So those born with power each had a speciality and they stuck with that. Aerial was a Hexer – she could take will and intent and turn it into something formidable, usually something intended to hurt. However, she could also call electricity, not useful in and of itself, but she could combine it with her Hexer powers to give her a rather unique advantage – she could use it to break other Hexer’s curses.
Which is generally how she earnt her bread and butter. After all, it’s not like Hexer’s were that uncommon; she’d never get far in that field. But the only others who could break Hexes were those that set them or a few other spellcaster types – who charged the earth to do it.
No, Aerial had carved out quite a well padded niche for herself and she intended to stick at it. And if it made her rather unpopular with other Hexer’s – well, there were ways to deal with that.
As directed to by Aerial, the electricity was sticking to the curse strands in the room and shading them a rather nice neon blue colour. It had the disadvantage of making the walls of the room glisten rather organically and the flickering of the lights almost made it seem like the room was quietly breathing in and out. Aerial shook herself, now was definitely not the time to get spooked.
Umbrella held high she moved closer to the strands, they were clustered so thickly and so virulently that it was like a rather dotty spinster aunt of a giant spider had taken up residence in the room.
Aerial pulled out a broken off car antennae from her pocket and pushed gently at the nearest bundle of tangled strands. Instantly two things happened. The antennae over heated and became so hot that she dropped it immediately and the temperature of the room plummeted. Aerial looked down to see where she had dropped the antennae. Rather fortunately, the skeletal hand that had emerged from the carpet had caught it for her.
Aerial looked down at the skeletal hand.
‘Mrs Budberry’ She called out with only the slightest hint of hysteria
‘Yes?’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘About 10 years now, a lovely area to live in. Pleasant neighbours, no littering. Just lovely.’
‘Um, when you bought the house, the estate agent didn’t say anything like, ‘just to warn you this place was built on an ancient Indian burial ground.’
‘In Milton Keynes ? I doubt there’d be anything like that here.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Aerial’s voice was getting more strained by the minute. The hand had now dropped the antennae and was using it’s fingers to feel around on the floor. It’s chewed fingertips were edging closer and closer to her feet.
‘No, he didn’t mention anything. Although…” Mrs Budberry’s voice trailed off
‘Yes?’
‘He did say that the locals sometimes jokingly called this place ‘Bluebeards Mansion
“Oh.”
There was a brief pause.
“Mrs Budberry?”
“Yes?”
“Please move back from the door now please, right now. Right, right now. Are you away from it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Aerial twisted and leapt out of reach of the hand. She ran to the door, dodging the now multiple swift hands that tried to grab her and drag her down. She jumped through and slammed the door closed behind her. She leaned against it, panting.
“Mrs Budberry”
“Yes?”
“Someone told you this house was nicknamed ‘Bluebeards Mansion
“Well, no. Isn’t Bluebeard some sort of fairytale about a pirate? I just assumed that they believed smugglers used to live here.”
Aerial groaned. Middle class morality was going to be the death of her.
“Mrs Budberry, Bluebeard was a man who just to chop up his wives.”
“Oh.”
“Didn’t the neighbours mention anything about it?”
“I never asked them about it – and they never mentioned anything. Although they did say we were rather brave to live here but I thought they meant the fact we had to rip out and replace the central heating. Which, as you know, is quite a herculean task.”
“Uh-huh” Aerial sighed. “Well, the good news Mrs Budberry is that you’re not the focus of a Hex.”
Mrs Budberry brightened up. “Oh that is good news.”
“The bad news is that you have a massive infestation of angry dangerous ghosts. Who I’ve just pissed off.”
“Ah.”
“Ah, indeed.”
“Can you get rid of them?” Mrs Budberry asked hopefully.
“It’s extremely doubtful. I deal with the living not the dead. And these things are definitely dead. Very dead. And angry. Yep, extremely angry.”
“What can we do?”
“Bar the door and pretend you don’t have a living room?” Aerial offered.
“Would they just stay in there?” Mrs Burberrys expression wasn’t very enthusiastic. Aerial could feel the thing wood at her back, she could also feel the vibrations from the skeletal hands knocking on it.
“No Mrs Budberry. I don’t think they will. You need an exorcist and soon.”
The knockings were getting harder and harder.
“In fact Mrs Budberry, could you start calling one now?”
“I don’t know where to get hold of them.”
“Yellow pages, under E”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“Well, I always keep the yellow pages with the phone.”
“Brilliantly logical. Please go get it.”
“It’s in the sitting room.”
Aerial closed her eyes and thunked her head against the door. Which just made the ghosts knock back harder.
“Hang on a minute.” She dragged her mobile out of her pocket.
The whole door was shaking now and she pressed her back against it harder, trying to keep them in.
“Mrs Budberry, if you could find something heavy to put against this door I would be much obliged.”
As Mrs Budberry raced off, Aerial listened to the ring tone.
Ring, ring
Knock, knock
“Answer”
Ring, Ring,
Knock, knock, knock
“Answer, answer, answer”
Ring Ring, Ring, Ring,
Knock, Knock, Bang, Bang, BANG
“Pick up the phone god damn it, you piece of!”
“Now, now sister dear, is that any way to speak to your brother?” An infuriatingly casual voice drawled out
“For the love of god tell me you’re not stoned?”
“In my profession? What a hazardous risk.” She heard him blow smoke out. “What seems to be the problem elder sister, you seem a little, how shall we say, stressed?’
“I’m trapped in a house in suburbia with a room full of blood and manifesting angry ghosts.”
“Why are you on a ghost call? You can’t handle ghosts.”
“I know that brother dear,” Aerial said through gritted teeth, “I didn’t know it was a ghost call. The lady wanted a hex breaking, the living room was raining blood. It looked like a standard hex right up until the point I electrified the room and these hands started to try and drag me through the carpet.”
“Hmmm, not fun.”
“No. Not fun.”
“Plus you’ve probably made everything worse since, to manifest, they would have needed energy from somewhere and by magicing the electricity you’ve just handed them an all you can eat buffet.” He paused. “You did remember to dismantle the spell before you left right?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“I was a bit busy running for my life at the time.”
“Well go in and check then.”
“I can’t go in when they’re busy trying to get out.”
“Hmm, tricky. Could you switch it off from where you are?”
“I can call the electric back to me.”
“Good God no! They’ll just follow it back to you and then you’ll be in a worse state!”
A long pause.
“Brother!”
“I know, I’m thinking, don’t rush me.”
By this point the door was shaking on its hinges. Aerial was relived to see Mrs Budberry coming back. Well, some of Mrs Budberry. Most of her was hidden by the enormous dresser she was pushing along.
“On the count of 3 Ms Aerial – move and I’ll push it over in front of the door. One, Two…Three!”
Aerial, for the second time that day, leapt away. The dresser fell in front of the door with an almighty crash. The door stay closed.
“Aerial, Aerial are you there?” Called out a tinny voice.
“I’m here, I’m fine.” She gasped.
“Oh I wasn’t worried about that, you always were the more athletic one. How long has your client had the house?”
Aerial was too tired to even be sarcastic.
“10 years.”
“And this is the first time something like this happened?”
Aerial blinked. She turned to Mrs Budberry, “I assume Mrs Budberry, that rooms of blood are not a normal occurrence in this household.”
She shook her head. “No. This is the first time anything like this has happened.”
“She says no.” Aerial told her brother.
“Weird. Then why has it just started now? Why not from the get go. What kind of ghosts are they?”
“Just hands when I saw them – could be more by now. But get this, Mrs Budberry’s house is called ‘Bluebeards Mansion
“Bollocks”
“Exactly what I would have said if I didn’t make it a policy not to swear in front of clients.”
“I think you could have been forgiven in that. Why didn’t you check this before you did anything?!”
“Because a) Mrs Budberry didn’t realise the significance of the nickname and so didn’t tell me until too late and b) I don’t often research suburban houses on the off chance a serial killer lived there.”
“You should, you’d be surprised.” He sighed. “Ok. Serial killer house – no signs of haunting before now. Odd for one. Normally they’re haunted from the get go. So, something must have happened recently to set them off – something before you. Ask your client if anything unusual has occurred recently. Although if she didn’t realise the significance of ‘Bluebeard’ then my money’s on ‘you’re both screwed’.
“Thank you, O Great and Wonderful Brother for your concern.” Aerial said sarcastically. “Mrs Budberry, has anything, and I mean anything happened lately that has been out of the ordinary. Anything at all that coincides with the events in the living room starting.”
“No, nothing.” Mrs Budberry said miserably. “I went through it all when it first began, trying to discover who was cursing me.”
“Ok, well,. We know no one was after you – so what about just generally odd or maybe new things. Nothing in particular, just things that were different.”
Mrs Budberry hesitated.
“Anything”
“When the blood started to first come down.” She said slowly, “I suspected my daughter’s boyfriend. Because, as you said, he was new and it started soon after he first visited us – in the sitting room. My daughter was very angry when she found out I’d had him investigated,” she said sheepishly, “she said I’d only done it because I didn’t like him, just because I’d judged him on appearances. And it was true I would have preferred someone more…refined. He’s a bit of a bruiser of a chap and I was worried about her. But I trust her judgement. Anyway, the investigation came back clean and he has no skills in the occult at all – and not the funds required to hire someone with talent. Plus, why would he have cursed us? He would have wanted to impress us.”
“Brother.” I said quietly
“I got it.” He replied immediately. “Big bruiser of a chap come to court the daughter, parents anxious – it must have triggered them off. Aerial, check and see if there’s a purification signature on the house. It’s standard procedure after any really violent episodes to purify the building – otherwise you just get trouble.”
“Where would the signature be?”
“by the threshold – usually just above the doorbell on the front door.”
Aerial cast a glance at the still shuddering door. She made a decision.
“that should hold them for a while Mrs Budberry, let’s go check out the front door – we’re looking for a purification mark.”
The two women headed towards Mrs Budberry’s tasteful farmhouse style front door.
“at least we’re by the door so we can make a run of it if we have too.” Aerial muttered.
“Quite.” Her brother agreed. “Can you see it?”
Aerial peered at the door frame. Although it had been painted several times she could still see some sort of mark.
“Yes. I got it.”
“Describe it to me.”
“Um, two squiggly horizontal lines, something that looks like a sun?”
“an eye of Horus too.” Mrs Budberry added.
“And an eye of Horus.”
“That is, not so good.”
“I really don’t need to hear that brother.”
