Chapter Text
The ringing came first. The doctors called it tinnitus. I called it the only thing I could hear properly.
The blast knocked me backwards, and Norrie into me. Hot blood spilled like lava down my cheeks and into my hair. Horrifying screeches, like a chorus of demons overtook the buzzing in my ears. I rolled away from Norries limp frame, and grasped my throbbing head.
No position or pressure stopped the wailing from raking across my soul. I blinked my eyes free of tears, refocused on the entity beyond the darkness. Pale faces emerged from the black fog, distorted and disfigured in unspeakable ways, each screaming a terrible scream.
Lucy
A soft hiss penetrated the screams.
Save yourselves
Hardly above a whisper, yet familiar enough to pick from the noise.
The door
Just as quickly as the presence entered, it departed, and the screeching returned.
Despite painful protesting, I pulled my hands from my ears. The blood had created a wet seal around my palms, which popped painfully. I pulled myself onto my stomach and dragged myself back to Norrie. She’d landed on her side, facing away from me.
“Norrie,” I gasped. “Norrie”
I reached her and grabbed her side. My hands left a bloody streak on her yellow uniform as I pulled her onto her back. Her face was slack, glossy eyes staring endlessly into my own. Her lips had turned blue and her body twitched unnaturally, as the ghost-lock took hold. I recoiled in terror, slapping a bloody hand to my mouth. My breath shuttered as I held back my tears.
The manifestation moaned, its tendrils creeping ever closer. My eyes flickered to it, and I swallowed back my emotions. Desperately, I began to fumble for Norries rapier. Any sort of protection against the malevolent spirit boring down on us would be better than nothing. Vertigo began to double my vision, as I blindly grasped a silver canister.
That would certainly do.
I struggled to an uneasy stand, magnesium flare in hand. My boots felt clumsy around my feet as I stumbled across the room. A fog began to fall over my brain. Malaise was the first indication of ghost lock. A weary, sluggish feeling that gave a visitor a target too apathetic to run from impending doom. I focused on the cold of the silver against the warmth of my palm, the feeling of my blood running down my cheeks and onto my jaw. Mostly I focused on Norrie. Birthdays spent together since I was eight. Silly stories under the covers at sleepovers. A bright flash as a camera captured our first photo together.
Cold air hit my lungs, and I knew I was finally close enough. With fading strength, I tossed the flare into the writhing mass and leaped for the door.
As the glass seal shattered, greek fire lit the hallway bright green. The shrieks redoubled, making me clench my jaw so hard it ached. But it was enough. I mustered a magnesium coated battle cry as I slammed the doors shut. The howls silenced as the lock clicked into place.
My hands instinctively cushioned my fall to the concrete floor. The pain made me feel more solid, as the ringing in my ears made me feel a thousand leagues away. As the fog cleared, my first thoughts were of Norrie. I turned my face toward her limp form, unable to pick her out of the darkness. My eyes adjusted, finally seeing the red pinprick of light beyond the hall. Jacobs stood in the distant doorway, the glow of his cigarette illuminating his dumbfounded expression.
“Sir! Mr. Jacobs!” My chest burned as the soot-filled air filled my lungs. Jacobs’ cigarette tumbled from his mouth.
“Sir!” Even in the dim light, I could see his head shaking as realization sank in. My final cry came as a strangled croak, while reaching a hand in his direction. He stopped, and raised his eyes to me.
My tears blurred his fading image, as he slunk into the darkness. His terror filled expression being the last of him I really saw. I choked on the salt filled air, as my sobs shook my body. I scarcely noticed their new sound as my vision dimmed, and darkness finally overtook me.
*****
By the time I’d been released from the hospital Norrie had already gone home on ghost lock hospice. The Coroner's Inquest was short, and found Jacobs in accordance with the information given to him, despite my word against him. All parents were given a payout from the Fitts Fund, with a pretty plaque in the town square for their children's noble sacrifice. My name was omitted, though my Mother had been sure to shake down Jacobs for her fair piece of ‘deserved compensation.’
Sensorineural hearing loss. The blast from a flare had damaged my inner ear, badly enough that it couldn’t recuperate. Cuts and bruises faded from my body. The ringing would disappear for days or spin my head for hours. But my hearing would never return. Not exactly. The doctor had been gentle with the diagnosis, ‘moderate loss in the left ear and severe in the right. Most tones will be hard for her to pick up without proper..”
“And her work?” My mother interrupted. The doctor clutched her clipboard and exhaled softly.
“At this point in the process, we would determine Lucy as…”
Unfit for agent work. My years of training, certifications, late night talks with Norrie, all of it amounted to a casualty of the craft. A tragic story of the Problem. A child with no childhood left to spend.
Neighbors had stopped by with casseroles, telling my mother and sister how sorry they were for me, reminiscing on old memories and cases. Of course I was rarely there. Norries parents hardly blinked when I brushed past them on the way to her room. It was where we spent most of our time before, and nothing had changed now. I’d become a watchful shade over her, my hollowed form flitting around her bedroom, waiting for something to expel me.
It was on my way there when I’d received the letter.
A manilla envelope, stamped with an official DEPRAC symbol, addressed to me. I’d read it at Norries, unsure I’d ever glanced up for the duration. By the early morning the next day, I was on the train to London.