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“That neighbour...” Harrow has his eye pressed firmly to the narrow crack between the window and the blind, “I know he’s up to something in there.”
Sarai just keeps flipping the pancakes and lets out a sigh. He knows his wife doesn’t see eye to eye with him about the gangly man next door and his frankly odd children. Harrow frowns as she hands him his coffee.
“Come away from the window Harrow. What if he sees you?”
Harrow doesn’t move though, he wants the man to see him, he wants him to know that somebody in the neighbourhood is onto him.
“Listen, last night… last night I was out in the yard around midnight and there was all this banging coming from his attic… flashes of light…” Harrow gives his wife a long and very meaningful stare, pauses for dramatic effect. “And then, then I heard somebody scream.”
Sarai doesn’t react the way a normal person would though, she just lets out another long suffering sigh and shuts her eyes before glaring at him.
“And what were you doing out in the yard at midnight darling?”
What on earth does she think he was doing? He was spying on the neighbour of course.
“I uh, I was checking that Ezran had put his bicycle away. Thought I’d better check the back gate was shut… there was a scream Sarai. For all I know he could have murdered someone in there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was probably one of the cats. He has a cat, I’ve seen it, it’s a sweet little thing.”
Harrow has seen the cat too, he would not call it sweet. Half the time while he’s trying to watch the neighbour he could swear the cat was sitting there watching him.
Still, there’s no sign of movement whatsoever in the house next door now, so he sits down reluctantly in front of the plate of pancakes that Sarai has put on the table just as Callum and Ezran come bounding through the door.
***
“Dad? Dad? Daaad?”
Viren gives a start, both his children are standing in front of him with expectant looks on their faces. In his experience that’s never a good sign. Reluctantly he closes his book on the runes of Xadia and drains his second mug of coffee. He is suddenly struck by the feeling it might not be enough to equip him for whatever it is they have planned.
“So dad. We’ve been here more than two months already… and remember you said we could have a housewarming party… remember you said that dad?” Claudia is giving him her most wide eyed, pleading look.
Had he? Had he really said that? He dredges round his memory, that would have been a moment of weakness he can’t really recall. Yet sometimes they do ask him something when he’s already deeply engrossed in other matters, and it’s true that he doesn’t always have much more than a vague recollection of it afterwards.
“Yes?”
“Right dad, and it’s Halloween next week. So Claudia and I were thinking, why not combine the housewarming party with a Halloween party? Then we uh, could kill two zombies with one bone…” Soren grins at him, he’s always annoyingly chirpy in the morning.
Viren rubs his face, he can’t help feeling it’s far too early to be having this conversation and that Claudia and Soren have somehow contrived to catch him now, when they know he’s at his weakest. Of course it’s partly his own fault, since he discovered the attic… well, there just hasn’t been much time for sleep.
“Okay. You want a Halloween party?”
“Yeah, but it’s a Halloween housewarming, then you don’t have to have another party too, you get them both out of the way at once.” Claudia gives him her most winning smile, as though she’s doing him a favour.
“Yes… but I’ve never agreed to have a Halloween party.”
He would definitely remember that, he had already made certain plans for Halloween.
“No, but you would have dad, because, because…” Soren looks at Claudia.
“Because you love Halloween and you said it would be good for us to make some friends in the neighbourhood so we weren’t hanging around the house all the time.”
Well, that was true, he had said that. There are certain things about the house that interest him greatly, but it’s hard to investigate them properly when the kids are always there. He looks into the bottom of his empty mug and sighs. Claudia takes it from his hands and wanders over to the counter to pour another.
“Alright, fine, you can have the Halloween party.”
Soren hisses out a soft “Yessss.” He can see him grinning at Claudia who presses the steaming mug back into his hands.
“Thanks dad, you’re grrrrreat.”
He can’t help thinking he should have put up a little more resistance. There’s a reason why he hasn’t had a housewarming party and it’s mostly because he doesn’t want to interact with the neighbours any more than is strictly necessary.
“So what are you going to dress up as dad? We thought we might be… Frankenstein…” Soren puts on a hoarse whisper.
“And bride of Frankenstein!” Claudia is less hoarse, more unbridled excitement, but they both stretch out their arms and school their features into somewhat vacant, half dead looks. Well, it might be Soren’s concentrating very hard expression, sometimes it’s difficult to tell.
“You could be Igor… if you wanted?”
He gives them both a withering look.
“Igor? No, that won’t be necessary, I… I’ve already got something planned as it happens.”
“Really?” He can hear the shock in Soren’s voice, and he should probably be more offended at the look of incredulous disbelief on his face.
“Yeah really dad?” Claudia’s expression isn’t much better. “It won’t be like the year you forgot and put a sheet over your head and pretended to be a ghost will it?”
He sighs, trust her to bring up that year.
“Oh yeah, yeah but that was funny Clauds… remember he forgot to put proper eyeholes in and fell down the stairs?”
They both start laughing as if that had been some hilarious trick he’d performed solely for their amusement. That year had been a bit of a disaster. What everyone always failed to appreciate was that he had a lot of important things on his mind and sometimes, sometimes it was just hard to remember the smaller details.
“No, no, this year it’s going to be good. Trust me, you’re going to…” He sighs deeply, but put’s on his best spooky dad voice anyway, “be afraid… be very afraid.”
“Oh.” Soren and Claudia look at each other.
“Are you sure you can pull that off dad?”
Sometimes their lack of faith is a little insulting. He makes an exaggerated show of looking at his watch.
“Goodness, look at the time, you better get ready or you’re going to be late for school.”
There’s a sudden rush of activity as Soren starts shoving food into his bag and Claudia gulps down her mug of morning potion, then they disappear down the hallway trying to outdo each other’s ghost impressions.
The kitchen is blissfully quiet again.
Viren flips his book back open.
“Viren…” The deep voice in his ear makes him jump slightly. “I thought we’d made plans for Halloween…”
He can’t help thinking that it’s hard to get a moments quiet in this house. He’d actually thought life would be more peaceful after Lissa left him, he’d been wrong about that. Still, it’s either the coffee or the feeling of something that seems to brush at his neck, but he gets a peculiar warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“I’ll make sure it’s all over by eleven, then we can, uh, have the rest of the night.”
“Good, because I have lots of plans.”
The warm feeling starts to spread.
***
“Oh, Harrow isn’t?”
The man seems to appear from nowhere and Harrow’s hand twitches on the latch of his gate. He gives him a good look up and down. If anything his new neighbour looks even more suspicious in the watery October sunlight. Gaunt and pale faced with dark circles under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept properly in weeks.
Probably because he’s up to something.
“I’m Viren, we’re you’re new neighbours.”
The man, Viren, waves vaguely at the house next door. Harrow looks at it through narrowed eyes, as if he wasn’t aware exactly who he was speaking to.
“Well, I wanted to give you this… it’s an invitation, we’re having a Halloween housewarming party. You’re all invited, and the lady the other side, and uh, the house opposite. I’m afraid… I haven’t had much time to make social calls you see. I’ve been very busy with… work.”
He looks away from Harrow then, pulls at his beard, the man looks thoroughly shifty. Harrow considers the envelope he’s thrust into his hand. Part of him says he should keep the hell away from Viren and his creepy old house, the other part though, the part that’s itching to find out exactly what he’s up to, that part wins out in the end.
“Well thank you Viren, that’s very thoughtful. What line are you in anyway?”
Viren just looks at him blankly.
“What?”
“What do you do for a living?”
“Oh.” His face clears, but then he seems to consider the question very carefully. “I suppose you’d say I’m researching the… futures market.” He says at last.
He doesn’t sound very certain. It makes him look even more disreputable, if that’s even possible. Perhaps Harrow should give him the benefit of the doubt though, he always tries to take Sarai’s views into consideration.
“Oh, that’s great, I can ask your advice then, what’s your opinion on Lux Aurea holdings? I’m thinking about buying into this new holiday boom.”
“What?” Viren looks at him so blankly that he might as well be speaking another language. He looks like he hasn’t even heard of the company that’s been steadily climbing Katolis Stock Exchange for the last two months.
“Lux Aurea shares, holidays in the sun, they going to keep going up or do you think they’ve peaked?”
“Uh, yes? Perhaps… I’m not really sure. I don’t really take holidays in the uh, sun.” Viren has a way of saying ‘sun’ that makes it sound vaguely unappealing. “Well, it was very nice to meet you Harrow, I hope we’ll see you at the party.” He has already started to back away from him, as if he is the weird one. Harrow keeps watching him as he walks all the way up the weedy path towards the dilapidated house.
***
“And now… now I have to make a ridiculous costume as well…”
“I thought you said you had that all in hand?”
“Yes, of course I said that. It’s just I was… economical with the truth…”
“So you know what you’re going as at least? I’m sure I could help you with it, I’m very creative, you know...”
“I can manage thanks.”
Viren slumps down into the single armchair that he had managed to wedge with great difficulty through the attic door. He stares into the rather fascinating gilt mirror opposite it, sometimes he’s almost certain he sees more than his own reflection there.
He hasn’t actually decided on his costume yet, but he doesn’t want to let the… entity know that. He’s been very careful to make sure that Soren and Claudia are asleep or at least out of the room whenever he addresses the mysterious voice that only he seems to hear, but he might have slipped up, they’ve been giving him some very funny looks recently.
Still he can’t help feeling intrigued. From the moment he’d first stepped inside the house it had held a certain allure for him, the peculiar feeling that his every move was being watched.
Some people might find it disturbing, given his line of work he finds it fascinating.
This, combined with the fact its abject state of disrepair put it somewhere within his budget, had made the decision to buy easy.
At first Soren hadn’t seemed too keen, come to think of it, he still seems a little nervous sometimes. He does keep trying to fix the creaking stairs and oil the door hinges to no avail, but Claudia had fallen in love with the place straight away. She even likes the odd rust stains that keep leaching through the hallway wallpaper every night.
He isn’t really sure why he’s the only one that hears the voice. That seems a little odd. Perhaps he ought to be a bit more careful, but then it is nice to have another adult something to talk to. Someone who seems to share his interests in magical investigation in a way his ex-wife unfortunately hadn’t.
It had taken a couple of weeks to get his name - Aaravos, and there’s something vaguely electrifying in the way Aaravos says his name, something strangely suggestive, as if there’s a whole world of unexplored things waiting for him here.
He’d done a little research, but the name Aaravos had turned up nothing. The house itself does seem to have had an interesting history, at least several of the previous owners seemed to have died in slightly unusual and unfortunate circumstances. That only adds to the aura of magic there though, it’s perfect for his research. He and Claudia have had very good results since moving in.
Then he’d discovered the attic.
The attic, now that was something else, there were things hidden away up here that he’d only read about in books. It’s one of the reasons he hasn’t been getting a whole lot of sleep. The potential to experiment, to discover new things with Aaravos is something he finds very hard to resist.
And then sometimes, sometimes like now, when he’s sitting there half asleep, it feels almost like a pair of arms wrap themselves around his shoulders. It ought to feel unpleasant, but he finds he quite likes it.
“So all your neighbours are coming round… how… delightful, I simply can’t wait to meet them.” He can almost hear the smile in Aaravos’s voice as it purrs into his ear.
“Well I’m glad one of us feels that way.” Viren yawns, it won’t be delightful. Now in the relative solitude of the attic he isn’t quite sure how he’d let Soren and Claudia persuade him that this would be a good idea.
Sarai has been nothing but kind to him, but Harrow her husband… “I’m not sure if the man next door is all there. He started asking me about share prices, I’ve no idea why he thinks I’d know anything about that.”
“He certainly seems to spend a lot of his time watching you from behind the blinds.”
“Mmm.”
He might be imagining it but there seems to be a tinge of jealousy in Aaravos’s voice.
Then there’s the woman on the other side, Opeli, the one who keeps leaving passive aggressive notes pinned to the front door…
Your gate keeps creaking, even when there isn’t any wind, please fix it.
There seems to be some red viscous substance leaking from your outside tap, it doesn’t look very hygienic, perhaps this is why your garden is dead. I politely suggest you have it looked at before it starts leaching into mine.
I believe your cat keeps knocking my bins over, please can you keep it in at night.
The last one scratched rather violently in marker pen. Come to think of it…
“Have you seen those notes from the lady next door Aaravos? It isn’t you is it? Are you doing those things?”
“Notes?” He sounds just like Soren when he asks if he’s taken the last cookie. “She’s particularly irritating isn’t she Viren? You know she offered to hold an exorcism for the last person who moved in here? An exorcism…” Aaravos laughs. “She has no idea what she’d be dealing with.”
“No?”
“No.” His voice has gone from its usual honeyed tone to something darker. “The last person who tried that lost their head.”
“You possessed them?”
“No, I ripped their head off. Shame really, the bloodstains have never really washed out of the wallpaper.”
Oh, so those aren’t rust stains then, Claudia had been right about that after all…
***
Harrow has assembled the whole gang, Opeli he knows is already on his side, they’ve been sharing notes on Viren’s shady exploits with each other practically since the day he first moved in.
Now he just has to persuade Amaya, Janai and Gren that the man across the street from them is up to no good. Sarai, well Sarai likes to see the best in everyone, but he’s pretty certain that if his plans for the party come off as he expects even she’ll be persuaded then.
He’s mixed them all highballs, bought in some classy nibbles, and now they just have to work out the best way to sneak around and have a good look at what he’s up to while they’re at the party.
“So I’ve been doing a little research on Viren, I don’t know where he works or what he does, but I know his wife left him. I checked the records, incompatible interests, I’ve got a pretty good idea what those might be.”
He looks at the others with raised eyebrows before Sarai cuts in.
“Harrow, you can’t do that, it’s private, honestly, I’m not going to be able to look at him if you carry on like this.”
“They wouldn’t file it in the public records if it was private Sarai, you can’t deny he’s got some odd hobbies. He’s up all night in the attic, I’ve heard explosions, weird noises… screams even, I want to know what the hell he’s doing in there. This is the perfect opportunity to investigate.”
He looks round at all of them, Opeli is already nodding, Amaya seems half convinced and where she goes Janai will probably follow, and Gren, well Gren is like Sarai, he’ll probably need to see the hard evidence. Sarai is just glaring at him.
“He is a peculiar man, I leave him the politest notes and whenever he sees me he glares daggers at me.” Opeli shrugs, drains her highball, and waves the empty glass at Harrow to refill.
“He uh, seems nice enough to me…” Gren ventures, “I’d locked myself out of the house last week and he gave me a very friendly wave.”
“Probably sizing you up for his next victim…” Harrow mutters darkly as he hands Opeli another drink. “Look that house has been empty for years, nobody ever stays long, and then Mr Torden moves in there, and less than a month later he disappears. Nobody ever hears from him again. Next thing we know Viren gets the house for a rock bottom price. Don’t you find that a little… odd?”
“Oh Harrow, honestly give the poor man a break, he’s a single father doing his best to look after two children. Things haven’t been easy for him since his wife left, if you’re really that interested he’s an academic, he writes books. He’s perfectly respectable.”
He can see Amaya signing something at her sister out of the corner of his eye but he doesn’t have time to take it in.
“What? How do you know all that about him?”
“Because I’ve actually talked to him, instead of glaring at him through the cracks in the blinds.” There’s the slight inflection to Sarai’s voice which means if he isn’t careful he’ll be in the spare room tonight.
“You’ve talked to him? When have you talked to him?”
“Harrow, his daughter’s been round to watch films with Callum and Ezran, I invited him in for a coffee, what on earth do you think I’m going to do, leave him standing on the doorstep? Now I’ve had enough of listening to your conspiracies, I’m going to bed. I suggest you all stop plotting and please behave at the party.”
She flicks her hair and walks out shutting the door a little forcefully.
Harrow glares round at the rest of the room, but no one seems willing to meet his eye. He can feel his resentment growing. Sarai has talked to Viren. He can picture the two of them sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. For all that Viren is a highly dubious individual, there’s something undeniably attractive about his chiselled features, those grey eyes, his artfully messy hair… he looks at Amaya.
“Do you think he’s handsome?”
She looks at him blankly, raises her eyebrows at Janai.
“Handsome? I thought we were here to talk about how we can snoop round his house?”
Ugh. Right, of course, that is what they’re here to talk about, he wipes the vision of Viren sitting at his kitchen table from his mind and strides abruptly to look at his house through the window. There’s a light moving around in the yard, he watches as it moves down to the shed. It’s definitely Viren.
“Look, look… he’s out there now. He went to get a spade and now he’s in the garden… burying something.” Harrow can hardly keep the triumph from his voice as the others crowd around to stare out at Viren’s yard.
“Perhaps he’s just doing some gardening?”
A nice lad Gren, but frankly terrible judgement about most things, especially human nature.
“In the middle of the night? With a torch? I know he’s odd but most people don’t garden in the dark.” Harrow sighs.
“Do you think it’s a body?” Opeli is craning over his shoulder and sounds almost as excited as he is.
“I’d bet money on it.” This is exactly what he needs to convince them all. “So are we all agreed? We need to look round his house, find some evidence and we definitely need to get into that attic.”
The three women nod with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Gren gives a little apologetic shrug. “Well I suppose it can’t hurt?”
***
“Well that was a great costume idea.” Viren sighs and hoists the spade over his shoulder as he walks back to the shed.
“Perhaps I forgot the right ratio of shadow spider venom to crescentpillar worms, it has been a few centuries since I last tried.”
“Perhaps you did.” Viren rubs his face, lucky he didn’t get his beard singed. Really he ought to know better than to blindly trust Aaravos by now.
“You’d have been the talk of the party, honestly, no one else in this town is going to attempt a smoke shadow costume.”
“Not if it’s likely to get them killed, no.” That’s the second time he’s had to bury the charred remains of a failed costume this week, tiredness is starting to catch up with him. Perhaps he’ll get some rest and try again in a couple of days…
***
A few days later…
“Uh dad?”
He’s barely had time to shut the door when Claudia appears in the hallway, almost as if she’s spent the last hour watching for his return. He’d rather hoped to avoid the kids until he’d had at least one mug of coffee, preferably with whiskey in it, it’s been a long day.
“Claudia?”
“So, I’ve got everything ready for the party, the decorations and the food and I’ve made two punches, an adults version and a kids version, and Soren’s just sorting out the music and we’ve got plenty of time to change into our fancy dress and… err, is anything wrong dad?”
He runs both his hands over his face. The costume, damn, he’d completely forgotten to get back to the costume. Claudia is looking at him uncertainly.
“Uhhhh you have got your costume haven’t you dad? Because you said that was all in hand, and I know Callum’s family have got really good outfits. Harrow’s coming as King Arthur, and Sarai is going to be Guinevere, Callum’s going to be Merlin and I think Ezran is going to be a dragon or something, and I know they spent a lot of time and money on those costumes…”
“Wonderful.” The neighbours seem nice enough but he can’t help feeling Harrow has a competitive edge to him, and that despite the fact he’s undoubtedly smarter than the man he’s going to keep losing to him anyway.
“Aaravos told me he was helping you…”
Her face has started to take on the tinge of worry that will soon turn to disappointment, it’s a look he knows only too well from Lissa and it takes a moment for her words to fully sink in.
“Aaravos? How do you know about Aaravos?”
“Well… you’re always talking to thin air, so I thought either you’re going mad…”
“He’s going mad Clauds, I told you he’s going mad.” Soren pokes his head round the door, grins at him, “Claudia thinks you have an imaginary friend… because you know, you’re super lonely since mum left you.”
Viren sighs deeply, pulls on the reserves of patience that he has left and smiles.
“Thank you Soren, but it was actually a mutual decision.”
He hears Soren mutter, “Yeah right…” under his breath but chooses to ignore it.
“So anyway, I thought I could use the Ouija board to communicate and we had a good chat… umm Aaravos was right wasn’t he Dad? Because there’s two hours to the party so we should probably all start getting ready.”
“Claudia please don’t encourage him, Aaravos isn’t real. None of that stuff is real…” Soren gives a nervous laugh.
“Of course. Don’t worry it will all be fine.” He cuts past his son and climbs rapidly up the stairs, it’s only when he has shut his bedroom door and is resting his head on the doorframe that he lets himself start to panic about the costume. He tries to remember whether he has any white sheets stashed away somewhere.
“Hullo Viren, did you have a nice day?”
He jumps even though he should be used to Aaravos’s voice appearing from out of nowhere by now.
“Why didn’t you remind me about the costume?”
“Hmmm, nice to see you too, I thought you said I should leave it with you after our last… attempt.”
Perhaps he’d been a little rash, he starts pulling everything out of the wardrobe, no white sheets even. Another year, another Halloween disaster, just one more parental failure to add to the growing list. He sits down on the bed, runs his hands through his hair.
“Don’t worry, I’ve had an idea, put on your black suit and go up to the attic.”
Well, he’s flat out of options. He does what Aaravos says.
***
“Oh…” Harrow is standing in the hallway, looking around Viren’s house. Is it possible that it can actually look even spookier on the inside than it does on the outside? The tattered wallpaper is peeling a little from the walls, the lights are flickering alarmingly and they don’t really illuminate anything, just seem to cast long, moving shadows everywhere. “This is all very, very err…” He looks to Sarai a little helplessly.
“Gothic, it looks very gothic. I love it.”
He likes that he can always rely on his wife to find the right words on an occasion like this, he doesn’t really like the enthusiasm in her voice, as if she actually means it.
Claudia and Soren are standing there smiling at them all, Soren’s perhaps a little too handsome to completely pull off Frankenstein, but Claudia makes a pretty good bride with her bee-hived hair. He can tell this a family that fully embraces the horror side of Halloween, of course they do.
“Hi Callum. Hi Ezran, everyone’s in the front room if you want to join them, we’ve got food and punch, there’s so many cool things to show you.” Claudia is already dragging Callum by the sleeve, he can’t quite catch what she whispers in Callum’s ear, it sounds like something about ghosts. He certainly wouldn’t be surprised.
He lingers in the hallway while Sarai and the boys follow Soren and Claudia into the room.
***
“This is… this is, err, reversible isn’t it?”
Viren is staring at the mirror. The purple veins and great shadows crossing his face do give the vampire costume a whole new level of authenticity, still he can’t help feeling that the changes to his features look somewhat permanent.
“Don’t worry Viren, it’s just a simple corruption spell, it’ll wear off in a couple of hours.” There’s a disconcerting uncertainty in Aaravos’ usually smooth voice. “I’m… pretty sure it will wear off in a couple of hours.”
“Let me guess, you haven’t tried this for a couple of centuries?”
“I’ve uh, never tried it before actually, I just remember reading about it… somewhere.”
“You read about it… somewhere.” Viren tries to keep the despair from his voice.
“I thought you wanted some help. I like the look, it really suits you, it’s very hot.”
“Please don’t try and make it batter with flattery, if this doesn’t wear off…”
Shit, he doesn’t want to think about it not wearing off, like he could go round looking like this for the rest of his life. He’ll have to worry about it after the party though. He wraps the cloak that Aaravos had told him was in the attic around his shoulders, it is a nice cloak, it looks very old. It really does lift the outfit.
“Uh, Viren, be careful with my cloak, it does have certain magical properties, please don’t get any food on it.”
That seems a little rich coming from someone who’s corrupted his face without being certain it will reverse. He shrugs half-heartedly.
“Sure, whatever, I’ll try.”
***
“Hello Harrow. Are you looking for something?”
The face that leers at him from the shadows makes Harrow recoil in terror. Pale veiny skin, dark eyes, ghostly hair, it’s acutely horrifying and it takes him a minute to still his racing heart and recognise it’s Viren under there.
“Uh… Viren, I was just… admiring the decorations… you’ve done a great job, the blood on the wall, the cobwebs, and nice uh, that’s a nice outfit too, it all looks so real.”
“Quite, the cobwebs were my children’s idea. Come on. I’ll get you a drink.”
He has no choice other than to follow Viren back down the stairs.
Still part one of the operation is accomplished, he’s found the attic door.
In the front room the party looks to be in full swing, well as full swing as a bunch of adults standing around listening to gothic Halloween records can be. The kids are already sitting round the kitchen table next door, they seem to be playing some sort of board game, at least it’s keeping them entertained. He hears Soren let out a scream.
He takes the glass of bright green punch from Viren, it’s smoking rather ominously.
“I’d go easy on the punch, my daughter does tend to make it rather strong.”
Harrow looks carefully round the rest of the room, he’s glad to see the others have all turned up, Amaya makes a rather impressive witch, though Janai and Gren’s costumes look a little last minute. Almost as if they weren’t taking the whole thing very seriously. Janai looks like she raided the first aid kit for her mummy outfit, and Gren, Gren’s just come as a lumberjack by the look of it.
He knew he could count on Opeli though, she’s come tooled up. It takes him a few moments to work out she’s supposed the be a vampire hunter, though in retrospect he supposes the rather large stake strapped to her hip should have given it away. Is that a real axe on the other side? It almost looks as if she’s expecting some sort of trouble to occur.
“Hey look at that, Opeli’s come as a vampire hunter and you’re a vampire Viren, isn’t that funny?”
Viren gives him a slightly bitter look.
“Indeed, most amusing.”
“I was just saying to your daughter, it’s nice all the uh, gothic features you’ve been able to preserve here, even the wallpaper looks like it might be original.”
He feels Sarai dig him in the ribs. Viren doesn’t seem to notice, his eyes keep roving around the room as if he’s expecting someone else to turn up. In the end though it’s just the black cat that wanders in and wraps himself around Viren’s legs.
The cat gives Harrow a long look as if to say I have my eye on you and he shivers slightly.
***
Viren tries to check his watch subtly. Not even nine o’clock, can that really be right? Can these people not even have been here for an hour yet? He helps himself to a slice of ham and pineapple pizza, he has to admit Claudia and Soren have done a very good job with everything, they do like a Halloween party.
His mind wanders to his original plan to spend the evening with Aaravos, the spirit of Aaravos, whatever he is. He’s been unusually quiet since helping Viren with his face, he’s not sure that’s a good sign. He finds he misses his voice in his ear though, at least there would be someone amusing to talk to.
Instead it’s Claudia who interrupts his thoughts.
“Dad, can we go out trick or treating with Callum and Ezran? Please dad?” Claudia leans into his ear and whispers “The Ouija board said it would be a really good idea.” He coughs slightly, he’s not sure quite how down the neighbours will be with the whole Ouija board thing.
“Sure, why not, as long as you all stick together.”
“Thanks dad, you did a really great job with that costume, you look great. Soren had doubts, but I knew you’d come through.” She gives him a hug, boy is it ever going to be hard to explain if the spell doesn’t reverse.
He can see Callum and Ezran pleading with Sarai, and at the same time Harrow and Amaya start gesticulating wildly at each other and slip out into the hall. He’s not sure why they seem quite so jittery all the time. He turns to Sarai.
“You don’t need to worry about the boys, Soren will look after them.”
She smiles and pats their shoulders. “All right then, don't eat too many sweets and have fun.”
He walks the kids out and opens the front door. Harrow and Amaya are nowhere to be seen, doubtless admiring more of the gothic features.
“Here,” he hands Soren a twenty, “Why don’t you all go and see the Halloween horror night while you’re in town?”
“Cool, thanks dad.”
He watches them walk down the path, hears Callum’s voice drifting back to him, “Hey your dad’s pretty neat, mine never lets me see any horror films…”
***
“Harrow! Amaya… what the hell do you think you’re doing? Sarai’s voice hisses in his ear and Harrow jumps, well he would jump, it’s actually pretty hard to jump with the weight of Amaya on his shoulders.
“Sarai… Shhh... what does it look like we’re doing? We’re trying to get up into the attic.”
She walks round to face him, she looks pretty irritated, he’d place it around a five on the Sarai one to ten scale. Could be worse… on the plus side he and Amaya had been able to slip out unnoticed while the kids caused a commotion.
“You… you can’t do this, you’re a guest at a party, you can’t go snooping around in his attic.”
“Sarai… you might not have noticed… this isn’t a great time to talk… I’m trying to ungh… lift Amaya up… she’s… actually a lot heavier than she looks… but uh, since you’re here can you see what your sister is saying? We didn’t think through the whole communication side of this operation very well…”
He’s craning his neck up, but Amaya’s hands are almost impossible to make out from this angle.
“Ugh. She’s saying left a bit Harrow, she can’t reach the latch. Look I’m not going to stand around here helping you both, please grow up. I’m going downstairs.”
It’s fine, he hadn’t expected her to help, and he’s so full of anticipation for what he is certain they are going to find in the attic that he’s barely aware of her retreating down the stairs. He takes a step to the left, staggers a little too far before shifting back again and hefting Amaya as high as he can.
“We have a ladder in the spare room, it’s a much easier way to access the attic.”
He nearly drops Amaya when he hears Viren’s cool voice in his ear. Shit, where the hell had he appeared from? The man seems to move noiselessly.
“Uh… the attic? What attic? We were just trying out a costume idea… I thought maybe we could scare the kids by pretending to be uh… a giant ghost, well it was Amaya’s idea. We were just seeing if it would work”
Viren raises one pale eyebrow, and looks at them both as if they’re a little insane. Still Harrow thinks they’ve got away with it as he just shrugs.
“Fine. It’s fine, just, please be careful, the house is a bit neglected, I’d hate for anyone to pitch down the stairs.”
Viren stands there, arms folded, staring at them. Harrow feels obliged to make some ghostly noises, Amaya clearly does not, and after a minute of embarrassment he doesn’t have much choice other than to put her down and follow Viren back down the stairs again. Perhaps he’s onto them. Harrow looks back with longing at the attic door, Amaya just glares at him.
***
“You don’t look like you’re having much fun Viren.”
He has shut himself in the bathroom for a moment’s peace when Aaravos’s voice whispers in his ear.
“Fun? They’re all completely nuts. I wish they’d hurry up and go home.”
“I’m sure that could be arranged…”
He stares wildly around at the empty room.
“Arranged? Uh, that won’t be necessary…” but the warmth beside him has suddenly turned cold. “Aaravos? You’re not going to do anything right? Aaravos?”
***
“Is something wrong with Opeli?” Viren is staring at her prone form lying on the sofa.
“What did you do to her?” Is Harrow’s rejoinder, but Sarai appears at his elbow.
“Darling, Viren didn’t do anything, he wasn’t even here. She has been hitting the punch rather hard.”
“I did try and tell everyone to go easy on the punch…”
Opeli is visibly shaking, eyes rolled back in her head and then an odd, disembodied voice emits from somewhere deep within her, “Beware… beware…”
For a moment Harrow is a little disconcerted, then it comes to him, she must be doing this on purpose, she’s putting on an act to give them a distraction.
“Hey honey, why don’t you and Viren take her home? She probably just needs to sleep it off.”
Sarai gives him her most withering look.
“Harrow, look at her, I think we should take her to hospital.”
“Come on you know what a lush she is, she’s always passing out. I’m sure it’s fine, just a little too much punch don’t you think Viren?”
Viren is staring at her with a rather wide eyed look of apprehension, but he seems to gather himself together quickly enough.
“Perhaps it’s the wormwood, Claudia can go a little heavy on the wormwood. It can have a slightly unusual reaction in large quantities.”
“Right, it’s the wormwood.”
Like he even knows what the hell that is, but the sooner he can get Viren and Sarai out of the house the sooner her can get phase two of the plan properly into action.
“Okay then,” He’s already hauling Opeli’s rather stiff body off the sofa, dumping her quickly over the shoulders of his wife and Viren. He supposes the look of shock on their faces is due to the fact they aren’t privy to his plan. “There we go, maybe you should make her a nice black coffee, that and a bit of fresh air… I’m sure that’s all she needs.”
He’s practically shoving them out of the front door, trying to ignore the suddenly suspicious look that Sarai is giving him. He shuts it behind them and watches their slow progress down the path from the window before turning to the others.
“Right new plan, Janai, keep a watch at the window, as soon as you see them come back shout or whistle. Amaya…” He looks at her, and starts signing. “Grab the ladder and check the attic” She doesn’t need to be told twice and is already hurrying out of the room by the time he turns to Gren. “Gren, you go out the back and check the shed and the garden, look for blood…”
Gren gives him a slightly nervous smile. “Gosh Harrow that’s, umm, it’s awfully dark out there…”
“Dark? Try looking for a torch then, I’m sure a man of your capabilities is up to the job.” He slaps him on the back. “I’m going to check out the rest of the house. Alright gang, let’s get moving.”
***
Gren wanders down the overgrown path to the shed. The garden is… nice? Well, everything seems to be dead, but perhaps you could say it has a certain… decayed beauty.
He might be a little disconcerted out here on his own. It is very dark, the leafless bushes cast odd shadows in the night and the batteries in the torch he found by the back door seem to be faltering rather alarmingly. He does wish that Amaya had gone with him, or Janai, or even the cat… still he’s sure it will all be fine.
The shed will just be a perfectly normal, standard, friendly neighbourhood shed. He’ll be able to tell Harrow who does seem a little jumpy, and then they’ll all be able to finally relax and enjoy the party.
The torch splutters again when he reaches the shed, he gives it a shake until it emits a feeble glow and then he pushes the door open carefully. It swings out with a hideous ratcheting creak and he steps a little hesitantly inside, Harrows nerves must be rubbing off on him.
It’s a nice shed, full of… broken things… rusty garden tools, an old axe leaning against the wall, chains… a surprisingly large amount of chains really, hanging from the wall and tangled up on the floor. He isn’t really sure why anyone would need that many.
There’s even a scythe, judging by the garden it hasn’t seen much use, but as he shines the torch on it he can’t help noticing the rather reddish stain across the blade, that couldn’t be… surely it’s not… he walks towards it, squinting into the semi darkness.
There is a sudden click, and a rather icy feeling around his ankle.
How bizarre, he seems to have stepped right into some sort of shackle, perhaps the previous owners were dog keepers. He tries to pull it off, but somehow it seems to have locked itself shut around him, it’s really very unfortunate. What are the chances? He follows the links of the chain along, its other end is cemented right into the shed’s floor.
They must have had one hell of a dog.
Well, he won’t be going anywhere soon like this, he shakes his head, imagines the look of surprise on everyone’s faces when they find him here and smiles. On Halloween as well, it’s almost like something out of a horror film…
***
Viren grunts as he and Sarai drag Opeli up the front steps to her house, she’s a deadweight between them. He’s trying not to think too hard about the cause of her sudden collapse, that voice issuing out of her mouth had sounded remarkably familiar… He holds her up while Sarai opens the door and they heft her as far as the sofa before laying her down.
Sarai turns the lights on and Viren stares around at the room, the main decorative theme seems to be a variety of crucifixes hanging from all the walls and he has no idea why she should need to have quite so many herbs strung around. Ironic given he’s pretty sure she thinks he’s odd, oh well, each to their own. He heads into what must be the kitchen to start making some coffee.
It takes him a while to find everything and when the kettle has started to boil he hears Sarai’s steps approaching.
“Uh Viren, I feel I ought to apologise for my husband, he’s not normally this jumpy, I think work’s been a bit stressful for him lately.” She is standing in the doorway, a slightly apologetic look on her face. “Honestly, sometimes he gets the oddest ideas in his head.”
“Oh, that’s alright, my son Soren is the same. He’s been on edge since we moved here.” He shrugs. “I think the kids miss their mother. I don’t think I always do the best job, I don’t know.” He runs his fingers over the edges of Aaravos’s cloak. “I do try, it’s not always easy.”
“I’m sure you do a great job.” Sarai smiles at him, “It’s nice for Callum to have a friend next door. I hope you like the neighbourhood.”
For a moment Viren is at a loss for what to say.
“Oh, you know, it’s starting to grow on me.”
They get Opeli to a half awake state before they leave her. At least he doesn’t think there’ll be any permanent damage, but walking back up the path to his house they are met by Amaya and Janai.
Amaya is limping heavily, her arm around Janai’s shoulder.
“She, err, fell down the stairs.” Janai is glaring daggers as she looks at him. Almost like it’s Viren’s fault, even though he had tried to warn them several times that the house still needed a little work. “She’s twisted her ankle.”
Looking more closely at Amaya’s face she looks deathly pale, eyes wide, almost as if she’d seen a ghost. Viren looks up the path to the open front door, a slight feeling of trepidation in his chest.
“Oh… put some ice on it… I hope you’ll feel better soon.”
He strides past them quickly towards the house.
He and Sarai have barely entered the hallway when they hear a terrible yowling shriek, followed by a deep cry of terror. They both run forwards into the living room only to see Harrow staggering away from an open door with the cat attached to his face.
For a moment Viren can do nothing other than stare, why the heck can’t they just be like normal party guests, eat a little food, and have a drink. Why do they have to go round examining every bit of the house and doing stupid ghost impressions?
He steps forward tiredly and starts to prize the cat’s claws from Harrow’s skin.
***
“Harrow, come on, it’s only a scratch. I don’t know what you were doing snooping around his store cupboard anyway. Don’t you think it’s bad enough trying to get into the poor man’s attic? Honestly, your behaviour was mortifying. I have no idea what he must think of this neighbourhood.”
He can tell by Sarai’s voice that she’s probably gone up to a seven or eight on the annoyed scale and it would be safer to drop the subject for the night, but somehow he can’t seem to help himself.
“I keep trying to tell you, Amaya opened the attic door and there was a great gust of wind that blew it shut so she fell off the ladder. She saw someone in there though, she thought it was a ghost… and that wasn’t a store cupboard. He’s got a basement too, who knows what’s down there? That must be where he’s doing… whatever it is he’s doing… I think he’s killing people. Opeli says she saw his kids trying to bury a body in the garden the other day, they’re all crazy Sarai, the whole family’s completely insane.” He shudders.
“Harrow, you have to stop bothering him, I know you’ve had a lot on at work, but please don’t get delusional, he seems perfectly ordinary.”
Harrow only vaguely takes in her words, he holds Viren’s handkerchief to the slowly congealing scratches on his face. He can’t help thinking the evening hadn’t been much of a success, somehow everything seemed to conspire against them, almost like… almost like… magic.
“Sarai… Sarai!” He stops and grabs her arm in sudden excitement. “The cat, the cat’s eyes, I’m sure they were glowing purple. What if it’s even worse than we thought, what if he’s… what if he’s doing… dark magic?”
“Dark magic? Oh really Harrow, please, I’ve never heard anything quite so ridiculous. As if anyone in this neighbourhood would be doing that.”
He tries to crane his neck, to stare back at the great, dark hulk of Viren’s house as they walk away, but Sarai is dragging him firmly by the arm. He will find out though, he’s determined to know what’s going on. For a moment he catches a glimpse of Viren’s slightly haughty, handsome face smiling at him from the upstairs window. It twists around his heart in an odd obsession.
He will keep watching him.
He will find out what he’s up to.
***
Viren trudges down to the basement, a mug of coffee in one hand and a glass of Claudia’s Halloween punch in the other. He isn’t quite sure which he needs more. He puts them down on the table and slumps onto the sofa. Just as he’s raising the mug of coffee to his lips a slight breeze seems to drift through the room.
“Well, that seemed to go remarkably well. Everyone enjoyed themselves, your costume went down a treat, the corruption is… definitely… wearing off. Gosh I do hope you have a Christmas party, because I would utterly love to see them all again.”
“Are you kidding? It was awful, one passed out and two of them left with injuries.” Viren rubs his face, it does feel like it might be returning to normal, he ought to check in a mirror but he’s too tired.
“Look on the bright side, nobody died.”
“Did you possess the lady next door Aaravos? Please tell me you didn’t do that and it was the punch...”
“Please, I’ve been waiting to possess her for years, it was just a little possession, an absolute modicum, she’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
“I suppose it might mean we don’t get any more notes for a while at least.”
Viren sighs, the neighbours do seem quite bizarre, he hadn’t fully appreciated this quiet cul-de-sac would have attracted quite so many odd balls. Still live and let live, and at least the kids have made friends and seem happy, that’s the main thing. Sometimes it’s nice to feel he isn’t doing too badly as a father.
There’s a soft creaking on the basement stairs and he turns his head to see the cat wandering down as if it didn’t have a care in the world.
“Funny Dagon should have attacked Harrow like that.”
“Was it though..? He seems like a dog man to me, sniffing around where he isn’t wanted.”
A slow realisation suddenly washes over Viren and he looks over his shoulder, suddenly thinks sees the vague glimmer of a smiling starry face.
“You… you made the cat do that as well?”
“Viren, please, they were never going to leave… we have plans.”
“I’m sure there was a less catastrophic way of making him leave.”
“Very funny… I thought you liked creative solutions?”
It feels like hands are massaging his shoulders, the cat jumps onto his lap and rubs its head under his chin with a low rumbling purr, it seems to be back to its usual good humour.
“I uh… yes… okay, fine. The man’s extremely twitchy. I’ve no idea how his wife puts up with him.”
“Quite… and we absolutely couldn’t have him finding the basement could we?”
“No… of course, you’re quite right, that would have been a disaster.”
“Exactly. He would have found the home cinema system and you’d never get rid of him… I know his sort, he’s bound to like action movies. He’d be round here every Friday with some awful film, a six pack of beer and popcorn.”
“You might be right. Well Claudia and Soren should be out for a while now, so at least we have our pick of the films. Did you want to watch Poltergeist or The Thing?”
“Well now Viren, I don’t know, what sort of possession do you prefer?”
Viren finds his tiredness abating somewhat. Something about that voice that worms its way into him, until he starts to feel positively hot, and his heart thumps oddly in his chest. Something about the strange feeling of those ghostlike fingers stoking slowly at his neck. He shuts his eyes.
“I uhhh, I’d quite like to be possessed by you actually…”
“Would you now? Well… that can be arranged.” Aaravos’s voice has taken on an even lower timbre than usual, and right as he hears those words, dripping warm into his ears, all the lights in the house suddenly go out.
***
Meanwhile… in a shed, somewhere at the bottom of the garden…
“Hey guys? Amaya? Janai? Viren… uh anyone? You do know I’m in here right? I mean it’s very nice, it’s a great shed, but it’s started to rain and the roof leaks really badly…”