Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1) (14 page)

Mrs Foley paused
appreciatively to take in the sight of Moon with his nurse's uniform showing under his jacket.  It clearly pleased her because she smoothed her hair and managed to inject a whisper of seductiveness into her next statement.  "You'd just better be," she said with a suggestive smile as he headed up the stairs.  Moon mentally shook his head, the woman was hopelessly incorrigible.

"
I'll see you later, Jerry," vibed Anna.

"
I will," Moon replied to both of them as he stumbled wearily off to his bed.

After waking at about three o'clock the next afternoon, Moon lounged around the bedsit until it was time to phone Sonia in the evening.  They discussed each other's work days and shared some general lovers' chat and then Moon asked Sonia how her visit to the pub had gone the night before.  "I hope you behaved yourself while I was slaving away over a hot patient," chided Moon light-heartedly.

"
Impeccably," she replied.  "Anyway, I thought you weren't allowed to let the patients get hot.  Isn't it bad for them or something?"

"
Yeah, but it keeps the NHS heating bills low."

Sonia laughed
.  "I always wondered why they keep hospitals so warm.  Anyway, last night was your typical quiet Tuesday night at the pub.  Except it wasn't so quiet, because that idiot Moz was working behind the bar and he always insists on playing Death Metal over the pub system.  I don't know why Kate puts up with him.  You know, he must lose her more customers than he brings in with that mangy crowd of his.  Anyway, I did manage to find out a bit about our suspects - turns out that Moz knows them both quite well.  He told me that Animal went back up to Scotland about mid December last year.  It really pissed off the rest of the guys from
Jumping Corpse
because they had a few gigs lined up over Christmas and they had to hire a replacement drummer.  According to Moz, Animal had a great job offer but had to move quickly.  He used to work freelance in IT down here but he was head-hunted by a big programming firm based in Glasgow.

"
As for Andy, Avril was right about him and Animal being a couple but they split up shortly before Animal left.  The split seems to have hit Andy pretty hard at the time but now he's moved on to 'higher things'.  Apparently, the reason why he fell out of sight is that he's become a born-again Christian."

"
A Christian? Aren't the ‘born-agains’ a bit set against the whole gay thing?"

"
Yeah, it does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? But Moz says Andy joined up with a 'good ole' holy rolling fundamentalist church out in Nailsea."

"
That seems to rule out our two main suspects, doesn't it? If Animal's writing software in Glasgow and Andy's joined the fundies."

There was a pause and Moon could almost feel Sonia thinking at the other end of the phone
.  "I guess so.  But, Jerry, Andy's still in town.  Just because he's got religion doesn't mean he isn't involved."

"
Of course, I see what you mean! Nailsea isn't that far outside of Bristol and it's certainly close enough to drive into the centre by car.  Do you know if Andy had any issues with Uri - any reason why he might want to frame him for murder?"

"
Not that I know of.  He'd have known about the 'vampire' rumours of course, but that's all.  But, murder though, Jerry? Andy was one of us and Dominic was, if not a close friend, at least one of his pool buddies.  Do you really think he would be capable of killing him?" He heard her worried sigh brush across the receiver.

"
Who knows, love? I'm no shrink, so I couldn't say.  Anyway, you let the police have the new information from yesterday, so they've probably come to the same conclusion.  Hopefully they'll take the investigation from there.  I don't think there's much more we can do about it."

"
Yeah, they thanked me for the information but it would be much easier if we could just tell them what the ghosts told you."

Moon sighed
.  "It's frustrating for me too but what can I do.  I’ve heard that psychics sometimes help the police but I doubt it's that common.  You'd need to find a sympathetic copper to begin with..."

"
What about Whatley? You said yourself that he seems to think there's something supernatural about this case.  Perhaps he'd be open-minded enough to consider what you have to say."

"
He's more likely to arrest me for wasting police time.  I don't know, Sonia, perhaps I can pass on the information some other way.  I'll try to work something out."

"
All right, I'll phone you when I get home tomorrow, okay?"

"
Okay."

"
I love you, Jerry." The statement had a ring of decisiveness about it.

Moon was happily surprised
.  "You sound like you mean it this time."

"
Well, I've decided that perhaps it's time to let go of the past.  You're the best, Jerry, even if you do have a tendency to see and hear things that aren't there."

"
Huh, look who's talking.  You and your weird feelings; if we're lucky they'll let us share a padded cell between us." Their laughter turned into more tender words as they reluctantly drew their conversation to an end.

Moon's Wednesday shift was providing nursing cover for the overflow beds in the Day Surgery Unit.  When there was a high demand for beds on the wards the night managers would allocate reasonably well patients - mostly those who were to be discharged the next day - to the five recovery beds used for Day Surgery patients during the daytime.  This was a far from ideal arrangement but, at times when there had been a real bed crisis in the past, Moon had seen all the beds and the theatre trolleys in Day Surgery occupied by inpatients.  Tonight, however, he and Claire, one of his colleagues from the night pool, only had five patients to look after and the shift was looking to be very quiet.  There weren't even any spirits haunting the Unit to break up the monotony because it was situated in a relatively new part of the hospital.  There had been very few deaths there to his knowledge and, apparently, none of those who had died there had remained earthbound.

There was little more to do, once all the patients were tucked up in bed, than to keep an eye on them.  After they had updated the patients' notes, he and Claire sat at the nurse station reading or chatting quietly into the middle of the night.  At about two in the morning Claire went into a side room off the Unit to take her mid-shift break and Moon was left on his own to look after the patients.  To Moon it always felt like the early hours of the morning existed in a slightly different reality.  Even if you were used to being awake at that time, there was a slightly brittle edge to the senses, as if everything was somehow sharpened.  It was the time that his supernatural senses were at their most acute, so he wasn't greatly surprised to suddenly find a spirit standing in front of him.  On first glance she looked like a girl in her early teens wearing a sodden, tattered, mildew-stained shift, which may once have been white but was now a variety of shades of mottled green.  Her face might have been pretty if she'd looked alive but her appearance was that of a drowned corpse.  Her waterlogged skin had a sickly blue-grey tinge. Her eyes were pearly white and glowed slightly like the eyes of the drowned underwater dead.  Her hair was lank and colourless, except for the dangling patches where it was tangled with dark green pondweed.  Her teeth when she smiled - and she was grinning at Moon now - were a set of uneven motley green fangs.  This wasn't a ghost, it was something else entirely; something dark enough and nasty enough for Moon to be suddenly very concerned for the safety of his patients. 
"What are you doing here? Are you out to cause trouble?"
he vibed defensively.

"Thou mayest call me Jenny Greenteeth"

The creature produced a strange echoing, bubbling sound, like laughter underwater. 
"Worry not, Jeremy Moon.  I come not for any of thy charges.  I wouldst speak with thee, 'tis all."
Her voice was similar to her laugh, it sounded like it was deadened by water.

"
Who or what are you? And why do you want to talk to me?"

"
Thou mayest call me Jenny Greenteeth, for that is both who and what I am."
The spirit leered at him again.

Since he had discovered his Gift Moon had been forced to
endure some hideous sights in his life, but this thing was beginning to put the wind up even
him
.  The name it gave him rang a bell but he couldn't place where he had heard it.  So he asked,
"And what does a Jenny Greenteeth do?"
He wished it would stop grinning like that - he could foresee some unforgettable nightmares looming in his imminent future.

"
My sisters and I haunt the still waters.  It is our task to make sure the drowning stay drowned.  Those who fall into my embrace seldom leave it alive."

Ah! Moon remembered now
.  A former girlfriend had owned a book about the folklore of good and bad fairies and he had read about the Jenny Greenteeth in the 'bad' section.  To Moon the author’s decision to call such monsters 'fairies' had always seemed in very bad taste. 
"If you're not here for my patients, Jenny, then why are you here?"
asked Moon. 
And how do I get you to leave?
- he thought to himself.

Jenny reached out a long-fingered hand with talons like hooks and snared one of his tiny ghostly companions
.  Cradling it in the cage of her fingers, she held it up before Moon. 
"It is about these that I have come,"
she replied.  She didn't look any better highlighted in the blue light cast by the minute ghost globe. 
"A drunken fool fell in the canal and I rode back here with his corpse so that we could give you a warning."

"
We?"

"
Aye, we who are known as the ‘Dark Ones’…  The villain who did this,"
she thrust the spirit globe forwards,
"has started to prey upon or kind.  If thou doest not find the cure for this, it will go hard with thee from us."

"
Is that a threat?"
Moon wondered what it was about him that made every supernatural beastie in Bristol think he could help to sort out their problems for them.  At this rate he was likely to end up on the hit list of every goblin from here to Bath if he didn’t do what they wanted.

"
Thou mayest take it as such."
Her grinning face hardened into a mask of malice. 
"I wouldst afford it such import if I were thee."

"
But why do you think I can help?" Unintentionally, Moon

said this aloud, eliciting groans and other disturbed noises from the nearby patients
.  He shook his head. 
"Why do all the spirits in Bristol seem to think I can help with this?"
he asked again, mentally.

"
Because thou hast the Gift, thou hast also the power,"
she replied.

Moon was confused
. 
"Power? I know that I have the gift to see creatures like you but I have no special power."

"
Then thou must learn to use the power that thou doest not think thou hast."
She laughed, then her bloated face became serious. 
"But learn quickly, Jeremy Moon, for the Dark ones have little patience."
  There was the sound of a door opening as Claire returned to the Unit. 
"I must go, Jeremy Moon, the still waters call to me, but thinkest thou on what I have told you... and act thee quickly for thine own sake."
She disappeared in a greenish mist.  All that she left behind to mark her going was a small pool of dirty water.

"
What? I thought I saw..." said Claire, staring at the place where the Jenny Greenteeth had vanished.

"
Saw what?" asked Moon, hating himself for having to play innocent

"
Oh, I don't know, never mind.  Anyway, what's that?" She pointed to the pool on the floor.

"
I'm not sure - I think we might have a leak somewhere.  It just appeared." Moon got up from his seat.  "I'll find something to mop it up with."

After he had
cleared away the pool of water - Moon was fairly sure that if it was analysed it would prove to be identical to the contents of the canal - he went into the side room with a cup of tea for his break.  Most nurses tried to sleep on their night breaks but Moon found that grabbing the odd forty-five minutes or so only made him feel more tired, so he would usually just put his feet up and read.  Tonight, however, he had a phone call to make.