Chapter Text
“Keep it in check!”
“What the bloody hell do you think I’m fucking doing!”
“Where’s she gone?”
The three voices ring out one after another as the young men race down the long, tree lined driveway of Ashome Estate.
“Roger!” the first calls out again. “Light her up! I’ve lost her.”
“I don’t know where she’s fucking gone!” the second voice roars back, it’s owner drawing to a sudden stop. “Fuck’s sake, Freddie, I told you this job was too big for us.”
“We’re perfectly capable of handling a bog-standard phantasm.”
“S’not a bloody phantasm, you cocking prick.”
“Focus,” the third man snaps. He hurries back to where the second young man is desperately spinning about, trying to lock down their quarry. “Hold still a moment, calm down.”
“Piss off, Brian.”
“Roger,” Brian says through gritted teeth, gripping a small, slim shoulder and putting an end to the ceaseless movements. “Calm down and focus.” He exchanges a glance with Freddie as the slightly older man returns to the pair, while Roger does as he’s asked, closing his eyes, and pulling in a deep breath, shutting them and the world out.
Most of the world, at least. Those that live and breathe within it, all their noise and movement and various creations. Deadened silence engulfs him until the footsteps begin to echo and Roger turns his head instinctively to follow them.
“She’s close,” he murmurs.
“Let’s see her,” Freddie requests again and as the younger man opens bright blue eyes, the twenty-one-year-old activates the luminescence that allows non psychics, those without the talent, to view the apparitions.
Into the night, a woman suddenly glows bright some distance away, drifting along one side of the path, slowly making her way towards the manor house. The hem of her long skirt doesn’t reach the ground, nor does the small fashionable trail following behind. The blouse and long skirts she wears puts her in the very early nineteen hundreds according to Brian’s research, which probably isn’t that important but he likes to be thorough. They’ve yet to discover her source however, that which ties her to the world still, which is a pain in the arse and the main reason they’ve been running up and down the driveway all bleeding night narrowly avoiding their own deaths when they’ve gotten too close and provoked her, and Brian’s at a loss as to how Roger lost her, actually.
“Right, let’s try this again,” he sighs, eyes on the phantasm they’ve been tasked with clearing. He tightens the hold he has on Roger’s shoulder. “Before you go running off half-cocked,” he adds. “Freddie, you got a better plan, mate?”
The other man arches an eyebrow at him. “A better plan?”
“Better than running about like lunatics, perhaps?”
“She’s stronger than we were told,” Roger grunts, not bothering to pull away from Brian. He absently rubs a cold cheek against the fingers on his shoulder, seeking the heat. “That’ve been nice to have known.”
“Running about like lunatics has always served us well,” Brian continues, freeing his hand as Freddie purses his lips at him. “But I think it’s about time we tried something new. Roger’s right, that’s not a type one.”
Ignoring him, Freddie focuses instead on their younger colleague. “Stronger how?”
“She’s fast, if you hadn’t noticed,” Roger glares. “Wide ranging, too.” He sweeps an arm at the driveway. “For all we know, this whole sodding path could be her source.”
“That’d be inconvenient,” Freddie muses. “All right; Bri, you need to find that. Roger, see if you can pick up something from her now she’s calmed down again, see if that helps.”
Raising an eyebrow, Brian looks the leader of their merry band over. “And what’ll you be doing?”
Freddie opens his long coat to show his stash of magnesium flashes. The salt bombs, after all, haven’t done a thing but infuriate her. “I’ll handle containment.”
“Oh, perfect.” Glancing down at his smaller friend, Brian smiles. “Best get to it, I suppose.”
Shaking his long fringe out of his eyes, Roger offers a small smile. “Nothing on the telly tonight is there? That’s why Freddie took this one.”
“I’ll keep her distracted,” Freddie promises. “Only, hurry, would you? I’m only one man.” He reaches out to lightly tug on a lock of blond hair as he addresses Roger. “Try not to get too far in, all right, darling?”
“I’ll keep him with me, keep him talking,” Brian promises. They say nothing more, but as Freddie leaves to begin his distraction and containment, he gives Brian a quick glance behind Roger’s back. Brian nods minutely; acceptance of responsibility and a promise. There’re cons to working with an exceptionally talented psychic, after all, as well as the obvious advantages.
“You with her?” Brian asks as they stray some distance away, watching as Freddie pulls his rapier to begin dealing with the apparition. This far from her, she’s not triggered by their presence, not even Roger’s. Brian scowls at the spirit as she goes for Freddie. They don’t even have a name for her, just the information that she’s been here since the problem started and getting progressively worse. Brian would point out that she’s been here for longer than that, only that whatever the problem is has awakened her violent tendencies and given those with the talent cause to see her.
Roger is quiet beside him. That eerie quiet he can be when he’s linking up, when he’s listening or seeing or touching an object that has been soaked in so much happening around it, it’s retained residual imprints of those events or the people who were important to it. Brian’s never really liked that eerie quiet Roger goes. Not because he doesn’t like what the younger man can do, or because he’s in some way afraid of the things they involve themselves in, although anyone with any common sense should be, but because it’s so unlike Roger as he naturally is. Roger is wild, loud, sunshine bright. He takes up space his small frame couldn’t possibly, roars like a dragon just to let you know he’s there, to make sure he’s not forgotten. This stillness is unsettling in contrast.
Too much like what they deal with.
“She’s sad,” Roger murmurs, drawing Brian from his contemplation. He tilts his head slightly, chasing a sound. “There’s a voice.”
“Whose?”
“She’s crying. The voice is there.” Typically, Roger doesn’t quite answer the question. His expressive face looks pained. “She wants ‘im to stay.”
“All right, Rog. Back away.”
The twenty-one-year-old ignores him, his eyes screw shut tighter in concentration. “They’re so distant, it’s hard to hear, the voice. A man. Trying to tell her ... go?”
“Go where?”
Roger twits again, searching for the source of the voice, but he doesn’t reply. Sighing, Brian supposes he should get on with his part of the job too. Glancing about the avenue, he wonders how the fuck he starts on trying to locate the source when he’d been given almost no time to do his job before Freddie had insisted they come out to handle the wealthy client. He brings out his thick notebook, flipping to the latest pages where he’d jotted down the minimal details he’d gleaned for the job, just in case some small detail has been overlooked in the rush.
No name for their mystery woman, but the location dates all the way back to the Tudor era, thanks to Henry the VII planning out a hunting lodge on the outskirts of London. Various upgrades and a fire had seen the building and landscape change over time, but none, not even the fire, had resulted in a suspicious, traumatic, or sudden death according to any records he’d been able to dig up.
“She can’t go.”
Looking up, Brian refocuses on Roger. His eyes are open again, staring at the apparition. She’s closer now, but Freddie’s keeping her at bay with the wonderfully adept dancing manoeuvres and swift, perfectly poised attacks his fencing master must have wept over and that’ve saved them all a time or two. All the same, they probably shouldn’t tarry. “Go where?”
“Promised.”
Reaching out, Brian grips Roger’s shoulder again, making the boy turn to him. “Rog,” he insists. “Look at me, mate.” He waits until large blue eyes have swept up to meet his gaze. “You back with me?”
Nodding, Roger nevertheless still appears focused upon their unknown woman, even if his eyes are upon Brian. “She’d promised.”
“Promised what?”
“Waited.”
Blinking, Brian pauses. “I don’t think I follow.”
“She loved ‘im. They’d meet here, walk the avenue under stars.” Roger sounds wistful and Brian bites his cheek, wondering if the boy knows he’s as much of a romantic as Freddie is. Perhaps the older man’s just rubbing off on him, scouring away those rough edges of his. “Only, it was secret.”
“What was?”
Roger, immersed in the unknown woman’s life, in her death, bites his lip, glances away. He shouldn’t tell. It was a secret.
“It’s all right,” Brian cajoles, throwing a look over his shoulder as a magnesium flash illuminates the night. They really need to get cracking. Phantasm his arse. “You’re helping her.”
Sighing, Roger shoves a hand through his long fringe and shoulder length hair. Brian tries, as always, not to feel jealous. As much as he gets admired for his riotous curls, that easy movement is a little difficult for him to get through.
“There was an engagement.”
Is that it, Brian wonders. A lover’s quarrel, maybe, an end to this engagement that she couldn’t let go of. Behind Roger, Freddie lets out a cry. Not a phantasm, definitely a type two. A shade, from the sounds of things.
“Where’d she die?” Brian asks desperately, cutting to the end. Literally. Seems like it’s got to be that, really.
“Front steps.” Roger says. “Jumped from the roof.”
“Bloody hell. What’s she doing hanging about the fucking driveway, then?” Brian shoves his book back into his bag and draws his own rapier. He’s not as proficient as Freddie is – hardly anyone is – but he’s good in a pinch and things are sounding a bit on the squiffy side. “Come on.”
They hurry to help, just as another magnesium flash goes off.
“Tell me you know what to look for?” Freddie pants as they reach him.
“No,” Brian calls easily, waving his iron blade at the apparition as it appears shockingly fast, who shrieks angrily in his face as they spar. “Not really. Got a site, at least.”
Roger’s not bothered with his rapier they note in some exasperation. He’s not bothered, in fact, with the shade at all, leaving his older colleagues to fend her off while he stares towards the manor house. “That’s where she died.”
“Can you see her death-glow from here?” Freddie rasps, dancing away from the woman.
“Bit of a smudge,” Roger reports unsurprisingly, squinting at it. Carelessly, he turns to Brian and digs in his bag for the book just as the apparition swoops. Freddie’s blade provides a safe haven, forcing her back temporarily.
“Watch it,” Brian warns, wrapping an arm about the boy’s shoulders to move them both out of the way as the entity looms in again, focusing upon Roger and the strong talent she undoubtedly feels emanating from him. She’s been taking aim at the youngest of them all bleeding night, but that’s not unusual for Roger. A switch from Brian’s rapier sees her off again for the present, the thrust of the metal finally scattering her. “What’re you playing at?”
“Where is she?” Roger demands, leafing through Brian’s notes.
“Have you sodding lost her again?” Freddie pants.
“No I fucking haven’t. She’s forming again, by the way.”
“Oh, fuck me.”
“She’s not in here,” Roger accuses Brian as Freddie darts forward to deal once more with their visitor as the spirit ball sucks inwards, trailing tendrils.
“Know that,” Brian agrees, dragging the younger man out of the way again as Freddie disperses her in short order this time. “Bleeding wrote it, didn’t I?”
“You two muppets are getting us nowhere,” Freddie groans, leaning his hands on his knees, rapier scraping on the loose stones of the gravel driveway as he attempts to regain his breath. “I can’t keep doing this, I’ve been at it all night as it is.”
“Was your stupid plan,” Roger tells him unsympathetically, still frowning at Brian’s less than helpful notes.
“When she kills me, I’m going to make your bones my source,” Freddie threatens, looking up at Roger from his half rested position. “I’m going to haunt your every fucking step.”
“Think you can grow a pair and pull yourself together for five minutes?” Roger asks, shoving the book at Brian and heading up the avenue.
“Don’t tell me,” Freddie says, straightening and checking for the shade once more. “You’ve actually got a plan?”
“More than you’ve had,” Roger huffs.
“Don’t start,” Brian warns the pair of them, as he and Freddie begin walking backwards behind their psychic in preparation for the apparition following them up the driveway. Hopefully they’ll put enough space between her and them for her to simply start her pattern again without being triggered, but best to be ready. “And draw your bloody blade, would you? Numpty.”
Roger finally does so, but keeps the point down, rather than up and at the ready. Still, Brian feels better that he’s at least got it unsheathed and in any case, they make the distance and reach the death-glow unthreatened.
“Anyone see our new friend anywhere?” Freddie checks, looking up from the nebulous shape slumped over a couple of the steps. “Blondie?”
“She’ll be here,” Roger tells him, voice that soft, husky rasp he drops into that usually denotes he’s either serious or at the end of his tether and so pissed off he’s going to kick a chair at a wall. Since the nearest wall’s several metres away and there’re no chairs in sight, Brian’s hand grips his rapier’s hilt a little firmer.
“What are you thinking?” Freddie must hear it too; he’s standing tall again, his dark eyes are sharp in the black night, glowing in the light of their torches.
They watch Roger shrug. “Taking a punt,” he says. Crouching by the death-glow, he glances up. “You ready?”
Freeing his other hand, Freddie clips his torch back onto his belt. It means the light swings crazily with every movement he makes and Brian hates fighting with that effect, but it allows Freddie to reach the dwindling store of magnesium flashes. Feels like they’ll need them. They spread a little out from Roger, close enough to provide him protection should he require assistance, but far enough apart to give them the range to fully use the long, thin blades they carry.
Out of the corner of his eye, Brian watches as Roger slowly pushes his hand down through the death-glow and he shudders. Without Roger, he’d never know it was there and he supposes thousands of steps have trodden through it over the years since she jumped, but watching the boy do it with the ghostly shape visible makes the hair on his arms raise. As Roger’s hand makes contact with the worn stone beneath, a sudden pained cry starts up and their heads whip around to find the cause.
It looks as if Roger’s punt has paid off. Dramatically.
Really, they should have had a net at the ready. They’re looking like a bunch of amateurs tonight.
“Where’s the net?” Freddie echoes that sentiment in a shout as the entity swoops in towards Roger, who rolls wildly out of the way, not bothering to fling up his rapier as there simply isn’t time.
Diving after his smaller teammate, Brian whirls his own blade in an effort to provide a barrier the furious spirit won’t cross as Roger gains his feet. “Bag!”
“Where’s the bag?” Freddie snaps, joining him. This close to the source, which they’ve apparently found, the apparition is much stronger, and she was strong enough before.
“Down there,” Roger grunts, bringing his rapier up finally and helping them drive the spirit back.
“Oh for pity’s sake,” Freddie snaps. His fingers close around a magnesium flash.
“Don’t,” Brian calls. “We might need them.”
“We need them now.” Freddie pauses. “At the source?”
“Fuck,” Brian swears. The shade roars, stretching forwards and aiming without doubt for Roger yet again. “Try it.”
Freddie lobs one of the small but powerful little tubes at the slab. This close, aimed at corporal rather than not, they can feel the chemical reaction; too much heat within that bright, shocking light that burns too fast and feels somewhat cold, that steals breath and heartbeats and trembles the earth beneath their feet. They end up on their knees, gasping and coughing to reclaim the air they’ve choked out, blinking to shed gathering tears and readjust their vision to the darkness briefly lost, trying to see the results of the small blast.
If the source was her body, it’d have worked.
“Shit,” Roger grunts, staggering to his feet beside the large stone step.
“Blondie,” Freddie cries, stumbling desperately after him. But Roger’s too quick, slips out of his shaking fingers and starts to run just as the apparition begins to reform, that little spirit ball of tendrils at first, rapidly coalescing into a human body.
Pulling himself to his feet, Brian groans. “She’s fucking fast,” he notes.
“In all things,” Freddie agrees darkly. “I’ll get her other side; we’ve got to contain her while Roger’s off.”
They don’t mention that they’ve got to try and distract her from going after him, give him enough time to get clear before she forgets about him. Give him the opportunity to get past her with the net when he returns. There’s no point in wasting breath.
It’s a hard fight. They have to distract the entity from each other as much as they do from Roger and eat through Freddie’s remaining supply of magnesium flashes to that end. This strong, at the site of her source, the only respite they have is when the flashes disintegrate her, the iron rapiers not doing the job of scattering her anymore, and Freddie spaces the use of them judiciously, keeping careful count of how many he has left, holding one back for Roger’s return. Each time she fades, she returns too bloody quick, barely giving them chance to regain their breath. Freddie, the better swordsman, does what he can, a whirlwind himself despite flagging energy, his blade a ceaseless blur of momentum as he works hard to not require that final one.
“He’s on his way,” Brian pants, spotting Roger’s light bobbing along the gravel. “Flash her.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Freddie’s face twists. He does so despise it when either Brian or Roger use that terminology. “Not yet.”
“She’s not going to stick with us,” Brian rasps. He slides across the path slightly, using footwork his fencing master would have rapped his knuckles for. “He’s not going to be able to protect himself.”
“I’ve my eye on her.” Freddie’s as exhausted as Brian. Possibly more so since he’d been duelling her earlier too. But he’s on top of the job and not about to let anything happen to any of them.
“Only one left?” Brian concludes.
Freddie doesn’t answer and Brian supposes he appreciates it. There’ve been a few nasty near misses that a disintegration’s come in handy for. For his part, Roger doesn’t acknowledge any of them, living or dead, just pelts up the driveway with the net in his arms. Predictably, the apparition turns to give chase and still Freddie doesn’t let lose the last magnesium flash. Instead, he and Brian work to keep her away from their younger teammate as Roger stumbles towards the step.
“Freddie,” Brian calls.
“Not. Yet.”
Roger begins to shake out the net. He’s shaking almost as much as the tiny links in the mesh is, breath coming in hard, ragged gasps. As he works, however, he slows. Confronted by all the power she’s radiating, half turning, he tunes into the shade subconsciously, eventually letting the net hang loose in his hands as he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. “What?”
“Roger!” Freddie shrieks as he, trying to reach the psychic, has to make a desperate twist aside or else face the deadly touch as the ghost swipes at his interference.
Still listening, Roger tilts his head. “You can go,” he says softly, unaware that Brian lunges around the furious spirit, whirling his rapier before him to keep the spirit at bay, unaware that while he’s seeing a woman, she’s appearing in the world a wild, destructive force, a dark entity seeking death to others.
“Freddie,” Brian calls desperately again, just as the apparition tires of his barrier and swoops low and to the right of him, aiming for Roger.
The psychic might be in the midst of listening, but he’s not got a death wish. Aware enough to realise that things have rapidly altered, and not for the better, he knocks into Brian, throwing them sideways across the wide, short flat step, tangling them in the big net he’d carried up from the bag, thwarting the touch the entity seeks to lay upon them as they roll.
“Fred!” Brian shouts a third time and is rewarded this time with the bright flare of the magnesium, that singular sudden cold heat, that sucking oxygen chamber of contained explosion.
“No,” Roger protests as the spirit once again scatters. “No, I was – Freddie, I was helping her.”
“Help her by laying her to rest,” Freddie tells him firmly, snatching a handful of the net and yanking it hard. “Off it. Quickly.”
Brian rolls away, pulling Roger with him when the younger man continues to protest. Looking back to where the woman who’d given them so much trouble all night had last been, he’s dismayed to see the spirit ball already forming, thick with the long ghostly tendrils that are merging alarmingly fast into her human shape. “Oh, fuck off.”
Hurriedly, he helps Freddie chuck the freed net over the large stone they believe is her source and watch as the vague outline of a body and slightly surer facial features vanishes.
“Fucking hell,” Roger groans, still sat on the next stone over.
“You can say that again,” Brian agrees, collapsing next to the twenty-one-year-old. He glares at Freddie, practically falling down in his haste to sit on the gravel in front of them. “No more jobs that don’t provide full details.”
Shrugging one shoulder Freddie gives a smile. “High risk, high reward darling.”
“Cos that was a fucking shade,” Roger huffs. He glares at Freddie. “I’m not going on another one unless you hire a fourth person.”
Wincing, Brian makes sure not to look at either of his colleagues. It’s been a bit of a thing, recently, this fourth person.
“We can’t afford a-”
“Can’t afford not to,” Roger challenges, chin tilted defiantly. “Think no one else would take me?”
“We need you, angel.”
“You’re one of us, remember?” Brian prompts, getting involved just as he said he wouldn’t. Just as he always does.
It cools that temper, a little. Sighing, Roger scuffs his boot against the who knows how old stone he’s sat on. “These jobs are too big for us.”
“We handled it.”
“How many times you flash her?” Roger challenges. “Ate up all your stock, didn’t she?”
Nodding, Brian leans his forearms on his knees. “A fourth can’t be as expensive as replacing magnesium flashes every job, surely?”
“Ain’t going on another,” Roger grunts sourly, crossing his arms stubbornly and Freddie sighs again.