Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1) (24 page)

Moon reached for Sonia
.  She was trembling and her skin felt alarmingly cold and clammy to his touch.   "Let's see…" he said.

Sonia
pulled her right arm out from her coat sleeve.  The wound she showed to Moon glistened dark and wet in the moonlight.  "I feel a bit sick and wobbly."

"
Sit down on the ground and try taking a few deep breaths." He crouched down with her and examined the wound as best he could in the dark.  The skeleton's blade had sliced lengthwise down through the muscle of Sonia's bicep.  The wound was fairly deep and obviously painful, but thankfully it hadn't hit any major blood vessels.  "I need something clean to bind this with," he said, looking up at their companions.

Charl
i tore a strip of white lace from one of her cuffs.  "Will this do?"

"
Excellently, thanks," said Moon taking the material and bending back to his task.

"
Moon, we need to hurry," urged Uri.  He gestured around them to where several of the skeletons had nearly finished reassembling themselves.  Several of them were struggling to get up even though they were still missing parts of limbs.

Moon quickly dressed
Sonia's arm with the makeshift bandage.  "You'll live but we need to go to Casualty later to get this cleaned up and stitched."

"
Casualty again? You really know how to give a girl a good time, don't you?" Sonia grinned weakly.

"
That won't be necessary, we have what's needed at home," hissed Uri urgently.  "But right now we need to move!"

As t
hey rushed past the writhing skeletons one of them grabbed at Moon's foot and dug its sharp talons into his flesh.  Pausing only for an instant, he winced and drove his other foot down, crushing the thing's bony forearm, and then continued to run forward with the skeletal hand still clinging painfully to his ankle.  As they neared the source of the magic they could dimly make out the slight figure of an old man glowing softly against the darkened undergrowth.  "Who the hell is he?" asked Moon.

"
My guess is that it's the ghost of the sorcerer who conjured up the goblin," replied Uri.  "He must have bound himself to this place for eternity so he could continue to protect his tribe."

"
Curse you, Romans!"
The ghost glowered at them. 
"You have desecrated the home of the Dobuni and for that you must die."

Moon experie
nced something he had come across before when he had encountered spirits whose native tongue wasn't English.  Within his head he perceived the ghost's words as English but, like an echo behind the words, he could faintly hear the ancient wizard's voice speaking in something which sounded like Welsh.
 
"Romans, why does he think we're Romans?" asked Sonia.

"
They were probably invading Britain at the time he died," replied Uri.

Roanne stepped to
wards the ghost and said something in Welsh. 
"Not Romans then?"
Surprise filled the ghost's face. 
"But your use of the Tongue is awkward and strange.  Where were your born, child?"
he asked, frowning with suspicion.  Roanne spoke again. 
"Ah, then you are of the Silures tribe,"
said the wizard when she had finished. 
"Great warriors they are.  Not always our friends but fierce opponents of the Romans."

There was a
bony rattle from behind them and, looking back, Moon realised they were surrounded by skeletal warriors, which stood motionless but alert, as if awaiting instruction.  "Erm, Uri..." he whispered, gesturing with his eyes.

"
I know," Uri frowned, "but our best bet here is to try to convince this gentleman that we are friends, not foes."

"
But what of these?"
asked the sorcerer, indicating Moon and the others.

"
They are my friends," replied Roanne, reverting to English.

The ghost cocked an eyebrow
. 
"Friends, you say? Yet they speak in a very strange tongue, and three of you bear the reek of a kind of magic that I have not met before."
He tilted his head like an ancient crow. 
"Hmm, yes; death magic and life magic intertwined.  It took a very clever Druid to do this.  But who could have done this? I sensed the deaths of most of my brethren on Mona when the Romans came..."

Moon caught Roanne
's eye with a question in his own.  "Mona?" he whispered.

"
Anglesey," she replied.  "It was a holy place once and the Romans slaughtered all the Druids while they were gathered there…  But we have no time for history lessons at the moment."  She turned her gaze back to the ghostly druid.

The ghost
's eyes refocused on Roanne. 
"Yes, killed them all they did…  So who wove this magic that keeps these three forever young?"

At this point
Uri displayed his complete lack of experience for dealing with ghosts.  "The magic was woven long after you and your people's time, old man, by a sorcerer from a land far east of this island."

Bugger!
thought Moon, Uri had just broken the cardinal rule of ghostly diplomacy - 'never tell them they're dead'.

”
After our time? What mean you, after our time?
" the old man's eyes glowed with angry blue fire. 
"The Dobuni are great warriors, their battle prowess unsurpassed. ‘High the hill of skulls they raise in battle, loud the laments of their foes!’  Even now they wage war upon the Romans and I but await their return.  What cowardly trick is this you try to trap me by? You pretty, woman-haired, Roman bed toy!"
There was a menacing rattle as the ancient warriors raised their weapons high all around the five companions.

"
I'm sorry, Sir, I meant no offence," replied Uri in confusion.

Too late for that
, thought Moon grimly.  Without a moment’s hesitation he struck out with resigned desperation, hoping to stop the Druid before the warriors’ weapons found their mark.  Nineteen ancient skeletons clattered noisily to the ground as he ripped the essence out of the ghost of the angry Druid and dispersed it into the night, leaving nothing but a tiny blue globe hovering where he had once stood.  Moon felt sick at heart as he watched it spiral aimlessly above the fallen remnants of the Druid’s home.  Had their quest forced him to descend to the same level of depravity as Rurik?

"
You didn't have to do that." Uri glared accusingly at Moon.

"
Yes, I did," he replied sadly.  "You don't know the spirits of the dead the way I do, Uri.  The one thing you never do if you don't want to upset them is confront them with their own death.  He was probably killed during a Roman attack.  As far as he knew he had only been there a short time minding the fort.  Given enough time we might have been able to convince him otherwise, but we didn't have that convenience.  If I had hesitated... well, Sonia and I at least would be dead.  I'm sad I had to do what I did and I hope that by the time he recovers he’ll be free to move on to the next life but I won't let you pour guilt on me for something I had to do."

Uri stood silently for a moment, his eyes darting in their sockets as he thought through what Moon had said
.  "I guess you're right, my friend," he said at last.  "I don't know the dead like you do.  I'm sorry."

"
Thanks," replied Moon with a short nod.  "Now let's get back to your place as quickly as possible and get Sonia stitched up.  Although, I have to warn you, I've not been trained to suture."

"
But I have," replied Uri.  "You have to be something of a field medic when you ride with a Russian war band."

"
Oh God!" moaned Sonia.  "I think I'd rather we went to the hospital, even if it does mean a two-hour wait."

In the long run the vampires convinced Moon and Sonia to go back to their house, where Moon helped as Uri made a very competent job of cleaning and stitching Sonia's wound. While he worked his patient relaxed on an antique, velvet-upholstered chaise longue in the vampires’ basement apartment, sipping rum and coke from a cut glass tumbler.  With Sonia patched up and one or two other minor wounds dressed to Moon’s satisfaction, the friends spent an hour or so talking through the night's adventure and discussing the strategy they intended to use against Rurik.  They hoped that the former vampire lord would stick to his existing
modus operandi
, despite the recent lull in his activity.  Assuming that he would do so, they planned to narrow down the possible location of his lair by plotting its most likely position on a map of Bristol from the locations of the outbreaks of violence he orchestrated over the next few days.  They could then, hopefully, corner him and incapacitate him, the same way they had done with the Stoneleigh druid, before he had grown too powerful for them to handle.

But as time passed there were no
further outbreaks of violence, no more of the little ghost globes turned up to join Moon's tiny entourage and Moon received no further contact from Inspector Whatley.  It would have been easy to assume that Rurik had simply left the city but for the continued reports from Anna that she could still feel a malevolent presence growing in the ghostly realm.  Moon thought he could sense it too; a nexus of sentient evil, the presence of which seemed to permeate the atmosphere of Bristol and breathe a tense and edgy malaise over the city’s entire population.

A month passed and summer came in hot and humid, transforming Moon
's stuffy little flat into an intolerable oven and forcing him to buy no less than four large electric fans to circulate the torpid air.  With their growing familiarity Moon and Sonia's romance began to transform into something less intense but more comfortable.  They became an established couple and Moon spent most of his weekends at Sonia's place.  He also became a regular at the
Hangman's Rest
and, under Sonia and Avril's combined influence, began to accrue a complete Goth wardrobe.  He still didn't think of himself as a Goth but he now stood out less from the
Rest's
regular crowd and any outsider would be hard pressed to tell the difference.  Moon's article on Goth culture was published in the June edition of Venue Magazine and the editors were impressed enough to offer him a regular two-monthly slot, which he accepted eagerly. He had already started the research for his next assignment - a two pager about Bristol's blues-folk guitarist community.

Following the battle at Stoneleigh Camp, Moon and Sonia met regularly with Uri, Charli and Roanne to discuss any local developments
which may hold some hint of Rurik's involvement.  They also got together just for friendship's sake, as the shared experiences of that perilous night had created a lasting bond between them.  Unfortunately, there seemed to be little in the way of enemy activity to report from either side.  Faced by this lack of action they were at a loss to come up with any kind of plan.

This
frustrating situation continued until one Monday morning in early July, when Moon was woken unexpectedly by the sound of his mobile phone playing the William Tell Overture.  He answered and was greeted by the deep Yorkshire tones of Inspector Whatley.  "Hi, Moon, Art Whatley here.  I was wondering if you could help me out with something."

"
Oh, hello, Inspector." Moon yawned and wiped the sleep from his eyes; nine-thirty was a bit early for him.

"
Oh, did I wake you? Sorry, I forgot you're a night worker."

"
That's okay, I'm not back in hospital until tomorrow night.  What can I do for you?"

"
How are you at finding missing persons?"

"
I'm not sure if I could be much help.  I'm a medium, not a psychic, so it would all depend on whether the local spirits had seen the person you're looking for.  Unless they happen to be dead, perish the thought, then I might be able to speak to them directly."

"
Oh?" Whatley paused to think for a second or two on the other end of the phone.  "Well, it may be worth a try anyway.  We've had four young women go missing from the Stapleton Road to Fishponds Road area in the last month.  Three of them were known prostitutes but the most recent was a student at the University of the West of England.  We think she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  No bodies have been found but we think that someone is preying on prostitutes, probably thinking that they won't be missed.  It could be that more than just those four have gone missing because, as you can imagine, 'working girls' tend to be a little tardy in running to the police.  We could really do with some help here, Moon.  The last thing we need is a serial killer hacking his way through the female populace." Moon could hear the edge of tension in Whatley's voice.  He hadn't mentioned the obvious but 'Bristol Ripper' headlines had probably featured prominently in his recent nightmares.

"
I suppose I could pay a visit to the area and ask the local ghosts if they’ve seen anything.  Is there anywhere specific you would like me to try?"

"
Not really.  The missing prostitutes all had their own 'patches' on Stapleton Road, a bit up past the railway arches near the Black Swan pub.  The student went missing in the same area after a night out at the Three Blackbirds."

Moon paused then replied reluctantly,
"Well, I could pop over there this afternoon and have a poke around.  I can't guarantee anything because it's easier to contact the spirits at night.  But I'm going out with Sonia this evening and after that I'll be working until Friday, so I'd have to do the best I can in daylight." He wasn't too keen on wasting his afternoon searching for spooks in the sunshine but if it could possibly save lives he'd give it a try.

"
Oh?" Whatley could obviously sense Moon's lack of enthusiasm.  "Well, there's no great hurry.  Whoever's doing this seems to be leaving a gap of at least a week between hits, so perhaps we could do it on Friday night instead? I'm working a late shift that day so I can accompany you.  We can't have you wandering around a dodgy part of Bristol alone after dark.  Don't want you going missing as well, do we?"

Moon sighed with relief
.  "Okay, Inspector, if you're sure it'll keep, but it'll have to be fairly late in the evening.  I don't know exactly what time the sun sets at this time of year but it must be well after eight o’clock."

"
Hang on," replied Whatley followed by a small grunt and the sound of other activity.  "About eight-twenty according to my diary.  Could you meet me by the railway arches at about half- eight?"

"
Yeah, sure.  Sonia will probably insist on coming with us. She could prove very helpful – she has quite a powerdul 'gift' of her own, you know."

"
If you think it’ll be useful having her there, by all means bring her along.  So I'll see you on Friday then.  Take care."

"
You too, Inspector." Moon suddenly thought of something; "Oh, by the way, is there anything to indicate this might be connected with our earlier trouble?" he asked before Whatley could hang up.

"
Nothing at all, I'm afraid, Moon.  We've had to write off all those random attacks as some kind of crazy coincidence, regardless of what you and I suspect to the contrary.  Your phantom nuisance seems to have gone to ground."

"
I have to agree with you.  I just hope we can avoid another body count when he finally surfaces.  Bye, Inspector."

The only thing Moon had planned for this the week was a semi-working trip to an 'open mike night' at the
Nova Scotia
pub, which wasn't far from Sonia's flat.  He hoped this would provide an opportunity to make a few contacts among the local guitar players.  The rest of Moon's week was his normal run of working and sleeping with a few hours relaxation in the afternoons.  Sonia hated this because it meant that they couldn't share a bed for three nights a week but Moon thought that the advantage of his long weekends and getting all his work out of the way at once compensated a lot for the inconvenience.

On Friday morning Moon returned to his own flat, changed
into lounge-around clothes and then lay on his bed and dozed until eleven-thirty when his alarm went off.  He pottered around for the rest of the afternoon watching a bit of afternoon TV and making a few tweaks to the draft for his article.  He always tried to take it easy on his turnaround day because the lack of sleep made him dog-tired.  When half past four came around he slipped into his street clothes and set off to Sonia's for tea.

Moon was beginning to appreciate
the fact that Sonia was a better cook than she was willing to confess.  She was certainly much better than he was anyway, and he had started to chip in to Sonia and Avril's food kitty so he could have supper with them two or three times a week.  Tonight Sonia was making chicken kebabs with satay sauce, which was one of his favourites.  On his way out of the flat Anna materialised in front of him.  She levitated herself to the right level for eye contact. 
"Something's happening, Jerry,"
she said urgently, in what he thought of as her 'big girl' voice, as opposed to the slightly lisping four-year-old singsong she still lapsed into occasionally. 
"I've been sensing some odd ripples in the Spiritual.  They’re almost like the tiny vibrations I feel just before someone passes over but without the bright burst that follows as they leave.  They've been coming perhaps once or twice a week over the last couple of months.  I didn't notice them at first because they're so small, but I'm wondering if they could be connected with Rurik."

"
What do you think they are, Anna?"

"
You know a few weeks back when you told me that people had died and I said that I hadn't felt them pass over or become ghosts..."

"
Yes?" Moon didn't like where this was going one bit.

"
Well, I think I felt this back then but it was so subtle that I just dismissed it as some kind of random fluctuation in the ether."

"
Are you saying you think you can sense people are dying but you can't feel what happens to them next?"

"
Yes.  Jerry, all those earlier deaths you told me about earlier were somehow caused by the ghost of a master vampire… it's not too big a leap to assume there's some kind of connection."

"
Any idea where this is happening?"

Anna shook her head
. 
"No, not really.  Physical directions don't mean a lot in the Spiritual. It's more governed by emotions and intuition than anything else."

"
Damn! We could really do with a lead right now." Moon gazed desperately into the small spirit's fathomless eyes.  "No ideas at all?"

"
You don't have to do much to hide if you're a ghost." 
Anna shrugged noncommittally.

"
Hmm, I suppose you have a point there.  Still, Rurik doesn't seem to be able to kill people without human help."

"
I hope he still has that limitation,"
replied Anna, her tiny face a mask of concern. 
"He may have grown strong enough to do his own dirty work by now.  Look, I've heard on the TV that Bristol's full of hiding holes of one sort or another - mines and quarries and smugglers' caves, that sort of thing.  Perhaps he's hiding in one of those places."

"
That may be worth looking into," said Moon thoughtfully.  "I don't think he's started killing people on his own though.  If Uri's description of him is at all accurate he probably wouldn't be able to restrain himself to killing only one or two a week.  It's not as if he has to worry about being caught by the police, is it?"

"
I suppose not.  But he may not want to have to confront you and your vampire friends until he's certain that he’s strong enough to face you."

"
I doubt that he sees us as much of a threat to be honest.  I didn't come off very well in my only encounter with him and he probably still thinks of Uri as the ‘weakling’ who bested him by chance several centuries ago.  I doubt that he would suspect how much of an expert Uri has become in psychic combat since then." Moon paused for thought then shook his head.  "No, he's using humans, I'm sure of it.  Everything Uri's said about him suggests that he'd prefer to work through minions if he can avoid doing the dirty work himself and the way he's acted since he got here backs that up.  We also need to remember that he's not just here on a killing spree.  We know he's set his heart on building some sort of power base in this city and that's going to require allies."

"
Oh, Jerry,"
Anna sighed. 
"I wish I could be properly helpful instead of just sitting here reporting what's happening in the Spiritual.  It's so frustrating!"

Moon summoned up his ghost sense and stroked Anna
's hair then kissed her on the forehead.  "What you're doing is great, sweetheart.  You've been loads of help and I'm glad you're not able to go out there and fight.  It's not because I don't think you're up to it but because I don't know what I'd do without you if you were turned into one of these little blue blobs." He indicated his host of ghost globes, which had drawn in around them while they talked.  The tiny half-lifes seemed to be feeding on the intensity of their emotions.