Fantasy Anima Damnata

[Troldmand]

This is our crazy RP with Daisie about unfinished business, cheating Death, and two broken people searching for a soul!​

…​

Stories. Everyone has one. Even myself, though most know me as someone keen to cut them short, now and then. Oh, have I seen plenty of them, from all walks of life, and corners of this Earth. Little, big, and somewhat little-big; once upon a time there was a nomad in the steppe who went on to build a country spread across continents. I have seen a mother nurture her child until came the time for me to lead her elsewhere, and the child grow up to be a ruthless dictator in times of uncertainty.

Fascinating tales, all of them. But, every single one had until these days been completely human. Man dealing with fellow man, until I had my final say in the story. But this one, the one I’m about to relate — it escaped these human confines. Tore the fabric of two worlds never meant to be connected. Toyed even with the precious order that we, the higher powers, had spent so much time to establish. Of course, I had to take part. Whether I was the villain, or the victim of circumstance, is something I will leave for you to decide.

This tale begins in the Athens of America, the name I had learned from a scholar when I last was spared a few moments to walk among the living. By the time of my enemies, though, it went simply by Boston. To Boston flocked all with a mindset to learn, and discover, and challenge old with the new. To rest their studious minds, they would settle the quaint narrow streets bordered by long rows of red-bricked houses, with little trees by the side of the sidewalk, and happy neighbors with deep pockets. Even that, which people down here call an “economic crisis”, had not scarred these scholarly neighborhoods. A cradle of knowledge, as I understood it.

But this was not Boston my enemies knew. Theirs was a little different.

In an old warehouse along the shore just north of Charlestown, on a quiet Friday night of September, a man was being beaten to a pulp. He had borrowed a decent sum of all-American cash, to support his drug-dealing operation. Operation that one unfortunate time encountered a minor setback, when his inexperience with dealing in secrecy led to him a whole squad of men in uniform. He barely escaped, but his hard-earned dollars stayed with the product. Due date went unpaid, then the unpaid days turned to weeks, and before long his mounting debt caught up with the poor crook in the form of a “masked terror”, who jumped him in the warehouse he hoped to call a temporary hideout.

“Where is the fucking money?!”, The Masked Man roared, yanking on the collar of the drug-dealer’s shirt to face his assailant. “You tell me that now, or I’m smashing your cheating head against that wall one last time.”

The Drug Dealer tried to moan a word or two, but instead came out a mouthful of blood. It put a fresh smear on his clothes, already stained from The Masked Man’s previous takes on his interrogation. When he found the strength to speak, his speech was breathless, on the verge of a breakdown.

“I had a par—”, he cried out. “I h-had…”

“What did you have?!”, The Masked Man shouted.

“I had a partner! Dennis! He-”, The Drug Dealer coughed. “That fucker turned me in to the cops, I’m sure. Took my money and ran off! Got no clue how much, but these crackheads won’t die over it. It’s up for grabs if you got a gun. Take-”, another cough. “Take everything. If it ain’t enough, I can find more later. Just please, let’s work this out, for God’s sake!”

“Where do I find the guy?”

“Dodgy old house next to the marina down in Charlestown. One with USS Constitution and shit. It’s next to abandoned docks in the bad part o’ harbor, called Martin Shipping & Logistics Company or something like that. Literally the only old-lookin house in the area that’s not under demolition, they don’t allow no houses in that are any more. And crackheads chill in there because there are always 0 feds around. That enough?!”

The Masked Man nodded a relieving yes, and let go of the Dealer’s shirt. Then, just as The Dealer began to catch his breath, The Man grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his head against the wall. He went out in a flash with a loud crack of his skull. Fresh blood coated the wall as his corpse slid down on to the floor; a pool of blood quickly formed underneath.

The Masked Man sighed, and took off his jacket, also covered in dried up splatters. He wiped his hands against it, folded it, and stuck it into his backpack. Out of the pocket of his jeans, he fished out a small picture with what resembled a Hawthorn-tree, and pinned it on to The Dealer’s back. His little ritual was now over, and he wasted no time rushing back to his battered Sedan.

Sedan’s engine roared into motion as The Masked Man turned the key. Lights shone the way forward. He threw off his mask, behind it a rather young man, about to hit his mid-30s, with an exhausted look in his grey eyes, and a faint smile of relief to feel again the cold against his skin. These things had been designed around degrees in the subzero, but this was just Boston under Fall, and a man fresh from the latest hunt.

He pushed the pedal. Alford Street, Medford, and Chelsea passed by, the signs dimly lit by old-fashioned streetlights; a little landmark to tell Charlestown apart from the districts reserved for the less fortunate. Even he, otherwise indifferent, drove these roads feeling unwelcome, a reminder of certain younger years.

“Charlestown Marina, Martin Logistics or whatever, old house, bunch of addicts”, he whispered to himself. “What a night.”

Soon waves seemed to hit the shore harder, seagulls squawked their calls louder, and the last apartment block hid under the horizon. Past 1st Ave, just past the creaking old Dock, The Man brought the car to a halt right beside an old house. Exactly as instructed, and even worse of a sight in person. Thick layer of graffiti spanning generations hid the planks and bricks that made up the house’s walls. Windows were broken, of course, and their shards scattered over patches of untrimmed grass that once decorated the entrance. It must have belonged to someone with deep pockets, and an obvious connection to the old dock nearby.

The Man thought back to his last victim’s word of advice. The House’s problematic tenants had not enough willpower to fight back, not even under effect, with their minds clouded, could they even consider to put themselves in front of a gun to save a few bucks, if there were any left. But this came from a man who had never dealt with his clientele in person. That, and a man who was in the moment begging for his life.

The Man opened a little cupboard before the passenger seat to his side. In there lay a gun with a few bullets rolling around it, that he loaded one by one into the magazine. Better safe then sorry, as he reasoned, in the event that push came to shove. He cocked the gun, and slid it in the pocket of his jeans.

Finally, he pulled on his mask. He turned the key, the car went quiet, and the street plunged in an instant into darkness. He walked a calm, but determined stride, up to the entrance, past the tilted postbox entitled “Martins”, and opened the old creaky door with a gentle push.

Indoors welcomed him with a strong stench of sweat and alcohol, and who-knows-what else. He could hear them muffling nonsense down the hall, in the dining room, the same room he noted at that moment for the distorted jazz tunes, coming from a broken player. A couple men and a couple women judging from the voices, and every one intoxicated to a varying degree. He stepped towards the room, careful not to bend the mossy planks under his feet too much, to avoid the creaks, and with the same careful stride, he slithered right into the room.

But no reaction followed. The four “tenants” kept on trying to talk to one another, resting spread-eagled on the table, or folded awkwardly on the few small chairs around it. It seemed to The Masked Man as though the music held them in a sort of alcohol-induced trance. He walked up the source, and put the trance to an abrupt end with the click of the worn-out “Stop” button on the player.

All of a sudden, the eyes of everyone in the room had focused on The Man. Wild stares they were, like the stare of an angered animal trying to scare The Man away from its territory. The staring contest went on for a brief moment, then The Masked Man began to reason. His voice was calm this time, and his delivery slow, far cry from the fury of an hour ago.

“I know you got money hidden in here, and someone very angry and very insistent sent me here to collect it. We can make it quick, if you listen, and do as I say. Which one of you is Dennis? Where you keep your stash?” he opened.

No answer. Just the stare growing more and more intense by the minute.

“I don’t think I can hear you that well.” The Masked Man went. “Which one of you is Dennis? And where in this house does Dennis like to keep his money?”

Still, no answer. The Man saw as one of the ladies, and one of the gentlemen, made a slight move in his direction. It looked like his approach would not bear any fruit.

“I see”, he continued. “Then maybe I didn’t make it clear.”

He pulled out his gun, pointing it in the group’s direction. Right away, he could spot a flash of shock and uncertainty in their eyes. A moment later, one of them backed away, two stood still, and only one dared anyway to make another step forward. The Man looked in his eyes, the gun locked on the brave addict’s chest.

“That’s you then, no?” he asked. “Are we—”

“Fucker!” The Addict muttered as he threw himself on to The Masked Man, knocking the gun out of The Man’s hand with a desperate swing of his arm, just as The Man pulled the trigger—

Bang!

The Addict’s partners in illegal pleasures covered their ears in pain as the loud bang reverberated throughout the room. As it settled down, they locked their eyes on the two men wrestling one another, trying to pin each other down for a fatal blow. Even now, in their circumstance, they could see the moment’s advantage. Four against one, and a gun in the corner…

 

[Daisie]

Sweet, sultry giggles.

She felt mischievous fingers dance up her bodice, causing her arms to yank in towards her chest. She used her elbows to try and dissuade the ticklish invasion, unable to quiet her laughter. She batted, swatted, and plead for respite in a flirtatious manner before she threw her arms over his shoulders, trying to blink away the joyful tears hanging in her eyes. He stopped and held her close against his tall, slightly overweight body, a charming grin overlapped by a tidy little moustache.

"Don't tell me. I could still guess it," she insisted, pressing her hand across his shaven chin. "Is it... more wine?"

Yet his voice came muffled. Distant and unintelligible, despite being mere inches from her ear.

Whatever he said, though, was enough to send her into an uproarious fit of laughter, with a playful shove. "Teddy! That's not fair, I haven't finished the full thirty minutes! You promised I could guess for THIRTY."

A dampened, wry chuckle came from him, followed by a resigned but smug statement.

"SECONDS?!" She howled through a startled snort, still tasting the fine red wine on her tongue as the hot rosiness bloomed in her cheeks. "Okay, okay! Uh-uhm... Chocolates! No, uhm, a new dress! Or wine again - oh my, that would be splendid, wouldn't it? I'm about to leave right this second if it isn't more wine."

Yet the entire time, he shook his head. Finally giving in with a faux groan of frustration, she fell backwards from him, laying herself across the bed behind her. "You're being IMPOSSIBLE, darling! Just come on with it, won't you?! In my mind, I'm already halfway out the door, you know."

That quiet, small smile spread across those lips of his again, just before he sunk towards the floor, lowering to one knee. He presented her a most important gift, indeed.

A gasp startled into her chest as she shot upright, hands cupped over her mouth. Her heart thudded against her chest, and suddenly warm tears cascaded down her face.

She nodded.

"Ye-"

Bang!

A gust of air drew in sharply from the windows of the house, sounding like a breath into lungs. A gaze roused from another corner of the place, yet it didn't belong to any one pair of eyes that dwelt there. No, it was none of the red, bleary ones that found themselves in the heat of panic, nor the eyes nestled behind that odd mask. This gaze belonged to a thing that stirred to wake, nestled inside the cobwebbed bed of the master suite.

It was... confusing. So much shouting, so much ruckus... such crass, unruly tongues. The desperate pounding of men thrashing about on a floor long since decayed was deeply upsetting to her. A subtle flash shimmered through every reflective surface around the house - window panes, pieces of shattered mirrors strewn about the floor, and every aged plate that had survived the years.

Once her vision came to focus and she gained just a little bit of her bearings, she hoisted her floating sight with a weary, pained groan towards the dining room.

Ah... that room. She could almost still smell her fresh bread set out on the table. Well, somewhere locked behind the putrid scent of mildew, sweat, and the marina.

She cared little for the people tussling in her husband's home: The one man who wasn't sweating bullets versus the four who frankly looked as if they might be going down her same path promptly, if their frail bodies were any indication. She watched the two celebrities of the night for only a second as they scratched, clawed, and wrestled for each other's throats, without any hint of concern or panic occurring to her. Rather... annoyance.

They were in her house. Intruders who were defiling it with their petty, ephemeral disputes.

The wind whistled through the loose, cracked windows oddly, as if the building itself was hushing its inhabitants. It was right at that moment that the music player's button depressed with a solid click, letting the same jazzy tune as before float throughout the room, alongside the men's wrestling.

While the remaining addicts were fussing over how best to help their comrade, one of the women (slightly more sober than the others) took notice of the gun that went flying out. Too rushed with adrenaline to even notice the music player's persistence, she stumbled down to her knees to pick it up off the ground.

A shocked pause stopped her, however, as the handle of the gun rattled and scraped against the floor, evading her grasp. She reached for it again only to find the same reaction, the muzzle dragging against the floorboards a few more inches in the other direction.

And then the woman reached one last time.

Bang!

Another shot sounded off, invoking a blood-curdling scream from her throat as she stumbled back from the weapon, leaving it alone in the corner. All attention was suddenly turned to her as she gripped her hand and continued to wail in a panic, blood gushing from the center of her palm.

"The !@#$ is wrong with you?!" The standing man screamed at her, enraged and alarmed - his question only answered by terrified and bewildered whimpering.

That same illusory gaze narrowed with some satisfaction... before resting on the masked man's brawl, watchfully.

 

[Troldmand]

In the chaos of their brawl, neither Masked Man nor his unyielding opponent had paid any heed to the House as it began to come alive all around them. They growled and snarled at one another like two rabid dogs caught in a brutal fight to the death. Not even the broken player could distract them, as it on its own sprang into action, giving the ring a strange tone of jazz, and electrical malfunction.

Adrenaline rushed in the The Masked Man's veins. His eyes wide open, pupils expanded. Frantic, exhausted breaths followed one after another, his heart racing as though he was right in the middle of marathon. Life had at that moment been reduced to a series of snapshots, slowed down, and with all out of focus that did not resemble his enemy. And the enemy had the upper hand. No matter how much weight The Masked Man put on the addict's shoulders, he stood his ground.

The Masked Man let go, and followed with a swift punch to the side of The Addict's face. It landed with a promising crunch of his jaw, and sent him stumbling a few steps back.

The Addict let out a frustrated grunt, and spit out the blood building up in his mouth. It was his turn now, and he rushed in with a swing of his own. A swing that The Masked Man could well see coming, and that he dodged in the nick of time, exposing The Addict's side as the weight of the punch pulled him forward.

The Masked Man put all his weight on The Addict's side, pressing him at last against the wall with the force strong enough to make the wall creak under it, and old scraps of paint to fall down on the two men's shoulders. Without a thought in his mind, guided by instinct, he tried to reach for the struggling Addict's throat, when out of nowhere The Addict struck his head against The Man's in a desperate attempt to break free.

There was a flash of light in The Masked Man's eyes, and a painful whistle in his ears. He felt weightless, falling free in the white void. Until it dissipated, about as fast as it enveloped him, if not even faster.

Now he lay on the floor, The Addict's hands pushing against his throat. He tried to draw his breath, again and again, and each time it hurt his chest and his throat worse and worse still. Thoughts of a way out swirled in his head, but with every failed breath, they blended together to a soup of nonsense. Instinct began to take hold as his bloodshot eyes darted around on the lookout for anything that could save him. He flailed his arms, his mind already far too clouded to punch The Addict off his body. His vision was fading away, objects turned to blurred shapes, and corners went pitch black. It became all a pointless struggle.

Bang!

The Addict trembled. He looked to the woman as she stared in shock at the gaping wound on her hand, blood surging out on the old planks underneath. His grip over The Masked Man was not so tight any more as his focus remained on fixed on his partner.

The Masked Man, almost out of this world, had drawn one last breath. This time, it did not feel heavy, or bring him any pain. Instead it brought a brief moment of clarity, as blood rushed back to his brain. He clenched his fist as tight as he could, and put all his fury and will to live into a blow that sent The Addict flying off his body. He pulled himself up, up on his knees in any case. He was shaking head to toe, just barely able to support his weight, and his breaths were deep. He could not yet muster the strength to say a word, but his thoughts began to organize themselves again into something sensible.

He crawled up on The Addict, who had not yet quite come back to his own senses, and went for a punch. Then another. Then one more. And more. More. His fists hurt, but he kept on swinging, adrenaline and rage both there in steady supply to numb the pain. He went on and on until The Addict's grunts turned to wet muffles, and the muffles to dead silence. The Masked Man stood up, blood dripping down from his fists, and looked at the rest of the people in the room. All terrified, and not about to have any more talk with this man. It was fight-or-flight.

The man who tried to tend to the injured woman's wound wasted no time weighing his options. He rushed for the gun, but just before he could grab the handle, the woman in the corner who had until now been a silent observer, screamed a loud and foreboding "No!".

"Don't touch that fucking thing!", she commanded. "It shot Ann when she went for it! I saw it!"

The man wished he could ignore her plea. But his gut-feeling convinced him against it. He had seen as the player came into life again, he remembered. He remembered also a momentary shimmer of the windows. Ann was drunk, but not so drunkt, that she would manage to put a bullet in her own hand. None of this was right, and he did not feel like facing The Masked Man hand-to-hand. Not without an ace in his sleeve, and it had then occurred to him, where he could fetch it. The study. It had to be the study!

So he ran, and The Masked Man chased after him, paying no mind to the rest. He ran so fast out of the dining room that he had for a brief lost his balance, and smashed into the hallway's wall so hard, somewhere down the hallway fell one of many paintings. He rushed upstairs, tripping every other step, but always just out of The Masked Man's reach, who always followed closely behind.

In his panic, The Man slammed rotten door to the study open, knocking it right off the hinges, and ran in.

The study set itself apart from the rest of the house with tall bookshelves that hid the walls. Covered in a thick layer of dust, and holding books that had not been opened probably for a century, or another. A lavish chandelier, now home for about as lavish a spiderweb, hung in the middle of the room. The old hinge screaked as it swung left and right. Middle of the room, set between two bookshelves, there stood a mahogany table that looked to have fared better than all other things against the passage of time. Upon it lay a pile of papers, and to their side, there was a stand with an old knife set on display. Curved knife, likely the real deal, and dating plenty of years back, when it came into possesion of the wealthy owner of this house.

The Man grabbed the knife, no elegance in his grip, knocking the stand off the table. He swung it right before The Masked Man, who immediately backed away, and secured himself some distance, besides the bargaining power, as he realized that The Masked Man was unarmed.

"Goddammit", The Masked Man thought to himself. It was not until after his chase, that he remembered his favorite negotiating tool, left downstairs. In the hands of two other people keen to see him dead. He glanced over at his surroundings, counting his options. There were not many. And all came with a high risk to get a knife in his chest. "What a night", he thought back to his ride in the car. This was never meant to be such a mess.

***

Downstairs, loud clings came from the dining room as the woman rummaged through silverware stored until then untouched. In the cupboards, and on the shelves. There were even a few under the table, for one reason or another. She smiled when she at last fished out a knife, meant to cut a loaf of bread, but fit about as well for a man's flesh.

"I will get 'm, Ann. I will. Hold on for a bit", she told Ann. Neglected, abandoned, and bleeding. No one in this house was in the right state of mind any more. "Art is upstairs. We will get that bastard."

She rushed up the squeky stairs.

 

[Daisie]

She had little care for the man's skull that was being flattened other than that he was then one less person to fuss up her house... though she didn't care for the crimson spatter down her rug.

The men and women scattered through the place like vermin. Little rats running through her skull. Begrudging exhaustion filled her when the so-called "Art" took off upstairs, leading her to sweep after, a cold flood of wind combing up the stairs. Worry and frustration hit her as the painting all the way down wall clattered to the floor. What brutes. Invisible hands touched the edges of the frame, lifting it back up and replacing it with care before moving along.

By the time her sights hovered through the walls and into the study, seeing a door once strong now ripped from its frame, she was long overdue to have this man out of her house.

Yet what she witnessed struck a cold room colder.

Teddy stood in the middle of the room, a grin of admiration as he inspected his newest addition to the collection. The dagger's blade glimmered as it caught the candlelight, curved into a point at the end which he fiddled at with a fingertip.

A burning coldness returned to her feet as she felt the snow with every desperate step. A sudden choke returned to her throat as he yanked the back of her dress so hard. A crushing weight pressed over her legs as he sat atop them. A cold hand stuffed over her mouth.

And the fleshy plunge of a cold dagger slid through her stomach.

Though it wasn't exactly visible, she laid knelt on the floor of the study, staring at the man in terror. The study's great window cracked open with a swing, letting an angry gust tear through the room, cutting as if a winter storm were nigh. Her hands came to the sides of her face, fingers curling through hair - or at least desiring to, having none of either.

An old stack of papers whirled off the shelf, fluttering through the upset air.

The chandelier groaned and rocked wildly, as if were pleading for mercy itself. Her gaze flashed up towards the man wielding the blade with anger... fury.

Survival.

Snap!

The chandelier's heavy metal frame dropped from the ceiling in the blink of an eye, plunging down on her intruder without mercy. He stood little chance as his body cracked with ease under the weight. Perhaps not quite yet dead, but undeniably broken, he was caged to the floor by metal spokes that pierced through flesh.

 

[Troldmand]

The loud bang of the fallen chandelier snapped The Masked Man out of his thought. In the blink of an eye, all his attention fell on the man buried under the broken chandelier. Not dead, but a far cry from what he would say to be alive. He balanced somewhere on the edge, moaning and groaning as every twitch of his body, at times unintended, brought him to clench his teeth, and draw frantic breaths as he tried to conquer the pain. Blood dripped from a dozen and more cuts on his skin, sliced under a shower of glass shards. The knife he had stolen flew out of his hand as the chandelier descened upon him, and landed right at The Masked Man's feet.

But he did not dare for a second to lean in, and reach out for the thing. His mind got to work connecting the dots, thinking back to the struggle downstairs, when out of the blue, a near-sober woman that in her attempt to shoot him down, had instead found herself with a bullet in the hand. He had looked again at the morbid sight of a man impaled by the chandelier that, moments prior, hanged in piece and looked rather firm, although withered by time.

"Accidents?" he thought to himself. If this was to be believed, then he would have to end the day playing lottery. These twists of fate struck just as the tensions in the house rose up, and up. It was the ones making noise, disturbing the peace of this place, for whom the bell tolled. Only the lady, who backed away into the corner to watch the chaos unfold without her involvement, had walked out of that room unscathed.

Quiet, he figured. This house yearned for it enough to kill, and he had intruded. He, and the rest. The Masked Man thought himself insane to believe the theory, but his every sense urged him to stay his hand, to leave the knife be. So he did. But there was someone else making her way upstairs. The Masked Man turned to face the doorless entrance as the stairs creaked louder, and louder.

She appeared at the threshold, and covered her mouth as she gasped at the sight of her partner bleeding out under the heavy frame of an entire chandelier.

"Murderer!" she screamed, holding fast to a silver knife pointed at The Masked Man's chest.

He put his hands up.

"Listen, lady. You wanna kill me, and I need to get some words outta you. But whatever you are planning, do not do it here. I want to say I did that to the guy," he glanced at the groaning man, and to the ceiling that sported an ugly hole where the chandelier had once been mounted. "But the thing fell down as soon as he tried to slice me up. I'm not a fucking MMA fighter, I can't make it fall like some superhero."

"Are seriously trying to talk your ass out of this?" asked the woman. She took a step forward, The Masked Man backed away. "You killed my two friends. Your stupid gun injured Ann, when she tried to get you off our guy. You jumped us, for no reason. Are you mental?!"

She kept drawing closer. The Masked Man was careful to retreat around the chandelier as the woman creeped towards him, until he bumped against the mahogany table, and knew he was now cornered. It was now or never for this crazy theory of his to prove correct.

"Please," he begged her again. "Just leave. I won't pursue. Just leave before this house does something again."

The woman stayed silent. She was in shock, pumped with adrenaline, and mourning the loss of her two friends. This man had their blood on his hands, and he stood there frighetened, cornered, and helpless against the knife. It was only fair, no matter the consequences.

 

[Daisie]

Even as this masked man gave the dagger on the floor a considerable glance, he was being stared down. As the wind ebbed and flowed into the room with life, she was quick to notice his hesitation - the look about him that had begun to piece together that he wasn't alone.

It was all the more interesting when that slender woman charged in with another blade, this time from the kitchen set downstairs. The man, he begun to talk. Beg, even.

This presence that loomed through the house... she felt something in her chest as the man spoke about her. It was a pressing, startled sensation. She found herself deeply alarmed, soul trembling. She had hardly a clue what caused it until she realized...

"When was the last time someone knew of me? Talked of me?" She thought to herself. The chronic fog that clouded her mind was only just beginning to depart, and the world around her was feeling so much more real than it did before. She wasn't being proposed to anymore, nor was she being killed. No, she figured to herself that those both must have happened a very long time ago.

With each step the man's aggressor took, each time she brandished that blade closer and closer, there was an ever-increasing upset to the air. Every ignored warning, every threatening remark, every surge of anger, it fueled something wicked. Something inhuman.

The air behind the masked man began to waver, misshaping much like a mirage in the desert, giving way to a coldness that worked down his neck and crept inside his spine.

The woman in front of him found her eyes unable to fully focus on what lurked beyond him. It was almost as if her own vision were betraying itself, and her mind was screaming at her to look anywhere else. Nonetheless, a cascade of watery fog was sucked up into the vague outline of a dress, flowing over the edges of the desk like rolling waves. Twisting and twirling unnaturally, the mist took shape of a slender, pale woman, chin raised up and dark holes where eyes should be staring down its nose.

A breath expanded the spectre's chest as its arms raised out to its sides, distorting and lengthening like smoke drawn from an extinguished wick. The room moaned and complained like a sick beast, yet the man's attacker wasn't granted enough time to change her mind before one of the many bookshelves creaked from its wall, leaning forward...

And toppling heavily towards both of them.

Truth be told, there was a hope in that soul that the strange man would survive. But if he didn't, then... well, one more body strewn across her floor wouldn't make much difference, in the end.

 

[Troldmand]

He could not see the apparition, or hear it, but he could feel its overbearing presence in the room as the cold gusts of wind touched his skin, streaming down the table, and flowing forth along the floor, behind the knife-wielding woman. But the cold air felt lukewarm put against the chill rushing down his spine, as his heart picked up the pace. He noticed a slight tremble in his hands, and his breath had suddenly felt heavier than ever, his growing fear was choking him, pinning him with a weight he could not lift to the very spot where he stood. He was entranced, watching in complete disbelief as the dusty winds took the shape of a slender, hollow-eyed woman. Part of him wished to close his eyes, to close his eyes and find himself elsewhere when he opened them again, but what he saw couldn't be brushed off as a figment of his stressed imagination.

The Woman herself had also sensed Florence's appearance. The hair on her arms stood up, whether from the cold or the growing terror, and the fury on her face had in the matter of seconds descended into a frightened frown. After a while, she felt the angered cold breath of something behind her hit the back of her head, she could feel the misty fabric of Florence's dress brush against the sides of her arms like dew on a foggy morning, and nothing like the cloth from this earth. Yet, despite her fear, she wrestled in her mind with a strong desire to look in the eyes of the lady of the House, whose hearth and home she invaded. It was a strange blend of guilt, shame, and animalistic fear, that struck her head to toe. She showed up uninvited, and intruders were not lightly pardoned.

So she closed her eyes, and with a panicked scream, she turned around, and swung her knife with such desperate force, that the weight of her swing as it passed right through Florence's form had almost made her lose her balance. Not a scratch on the lady of the House, and the woman knew it. But she kept her eyes closed still, now face to face with the manifestation of her punishment. Tears began rolling down her face as she had also felt her fear weigh her down, perhaps with a weight heavier than the Masked Man's.

Then came the loud creaks of the old bookshelf, and the rapid schliffs of the books, as all of it came crushing down on both intruders. It was then that the woman forced herself to open her eyes, but it was all too late to stand up to Florence. The last thing she had seen, the last thing that made her gasp, and scream thereafter, was a mass of old books, and the tall wooden bookshelves falling down on her. Her body cracked under the immense weight, only part of her hand stuck out, holding still for dear life on to the handle of the knife. It held on for a moment and another, and then her grip relaxed, knife rolling out of her hand. This was her end.

But The Masked Man's was not yet nigh. He stood a little farther when the shelves fell down, and overcoming his fear of Florence with the fear of a painful death under years and years of forgotten tomes, he snapped out of his stasis to throw himself to the side. In the heat of the moment, he had not paid attention where, and as he landed, he hit the back of his head against the edge of the mahogany table. He clenched his teeth, a painful groan coming out of his mouth, and put his hand against the side of his head. It felt wet to the touch, even through his mask. No one but him was left alive in the room, in the direct sense of the word in any case, so he had taken his mask off, revealing the man in his prime hidden under. He touched the wound again: it bled, but nothing that a trip to the emergency room couldn't treat, if he made haste.

He then turned his attention back to the apparition, and put his hands up, as though in an act of surrender. Without his mask, The Man didn't quite match the image of a brutal headhunter that he carried about himself. He was just a man, not all too tall or short, with a head of messy blond hair slid a little to the back. He still had some youthfulness to his eyes, though it was beyond doubt giving way to maturity. There was no blind fury in those grey eyes any longer, they still felt empty. Empty, and frightened, of course.

"Look," he said. "I don't know if you can understand me, I don't even understand what you even are. But I'm not looking for a fight. My business here is o'er, I will get out of here and never come back." he insisted. He then pointed to his wound, the hair around it dyed red in the fresh blood.

"I need to find a doctor. If there is something I can do to calm you down, anything. Just let me know, and consider it done. It's my job. To," he stuttered a little, to his own surprise. "It's my job to get stuff done for people. Can we, can we reason?" he asked. "Anything. Just let me out."

 

[Daisie]

The ghostly figure stood staring at the fallen bookshelf and the misfortune of the body beneath it, even as the one remaining man sat against the floor with a hand against his head. It was when he spoke to her that her head swiveled to look at him, the eyes having a strange sort of gleam to them despite their darkness.

As she did, she found a man much less threatening than the others had been. Less angry. Of course, that could very well be because she'd maimed them all in various ways, but as her gaze fell on him, it silently bore through his soul.

Her form faded just a little bit as he spoke to her, filling her with that odd feeling again that she couldn't quite place. It made her feel awake. It almost made her feel alive again. A loose outline of her arm raised to bring a hand up to her face, conveying confusion... weariness. She turned away from him.

It wasn't a voice from the throat that used to speak to him. Rather, something crackled from the phone he kept tucked away in his pocket. Unsteady, eerie tones spat from the device, despite not even being activated. Laid underneath it was the sound of a woman breathing in deeply, before letting that breath out through the nose. When her voice floated through, it was feminine, and it didn't bear regular intonation. Her cadence slogged through some words as if she'd just woken up, or as if she were struggling to speak through something traumatic.

"It's... loud. So loud..." The speaker crackled as the ghostly form of the woman rubbed a hand against her face. More than anything, she looked distressed. Her voice raised as she grew more insistent, "people yelling in the dining room. Ruining their bodies... but it's not used for that!"

"These strangers in my home, waving guns and knives." Her tone cycled between groggy confusion and righteous anger. "I don't understand!"

"Who are you? Why-..." Her voice in his pocket paused. A few seconds passed of empty, fizzling static before she turned back to face him and brought her hand down from her face, eyes locked onto him again. One could discern she was just as alarmed as he was - it was fear that drove her wrath. "Why are you in my husband's house?"

 

[Troldmand]

The Masked Man pulled himself up, his arms and legs still a little shaken, exhausted from the fuss he had just weathered. Or so he hoped, anyway, as long as he took care choosing his words, and carried himself with grace and patience in front of the lady of the house. He was never before so glad to be alive, as he was observing Florence pondering and feeling, and making some sense of what surrounded her. Fear of his had in this while turned to a wary fascination, his eyes following Florence's shape-shifting form. It seemed to him, as though these forms had in themselves been a form of language for the ghost, each new twist and turn of her shape like a word, and the final physique -- a whole sentence. To him, it was as of yet gibberish, but there must have been a hidden meaning left to translate.

But then Florence spoke. He felt her words as well as he could hear them, as every word spoken sent a faint charge from the phone's speakers down the side of his leg, making it twitch just a little bit. So, as she continued her undead tale of frustration at the unruly home invaders, The Masked Man took the phone out of the pocket of his pants, and lay it with care on the table. Soon came his turn to speak. He wasn't sure if he had to, but he picked up the phone, and held it up to his mouth. He could see clear through Florence, and his mind raced to all manner of assumptions. Could she hear him, anyway? There was no time to waste on experimentation.

"I agree, miss." he began. Miss? Was this something a ghost could be called any more? He had all of a sudden felt himself a proper negotiator, determined to settle a grudge between two ambassadors. Rather, instead of holding the fate of nations in his hands, it was his own precious life, that he had put at stake.

"It was wrong for us to come in, and to disturb you. But we had no idea anyone lived in this place. It's been abandoned for years," he reasoned. "And, honest, we did not really expect to see, uh," he stuttered a little, searching for the right term. "Uh, a late proprietor like you, or your husband. I can't vouch for those guys, but I came here trying to stop their little drug operation, if that's something you know a thing about. Then it all went to shit, as we say, uh, these days. I need to find a guy, who makes more people ruin their bodies. And right now, he is being as big of a thorn in my ass as I must be in, uhm."

He silenced himself. Though hesitant for a moment, he stretched out his arm, offering Florence to shake it.

"You're such an idiot," he thought of himself. She was see-through. How on earth would she shake his hand? Would it even stay in place if she did, or would it fall off, or turn to ash? He had no idea. His mind was flooded with questions he never thought he would ask himself.

 

[Daisie]

The ghostly figure's distress swirled around her with every word she spoke, but that sharp, dangerous feeling to the room began to fade as soon as the man began to stand up to her and negotiate, it was softened and replaced by something else. Her eyes no longer felt like they harpooned through his heart, and instead, she found herself... oddly intrigued. Wondering how mad of a man she'd come across that would actually keep holding a conversation with...

Well, with something like her.

He babbled to her for a few moments in some attempt to come off polite and respectful before extending his hand out to her, her gaze following it. He was faced with no response for a few seconds that almost seemed to drag on for hours.

Nonetheless, when she did reply, it wasn't with a firm handshake. Her hand hovered up above her mouth, and she closed her eyes, her chin tucked down, and her shoulders bouncing ever so slightly. It wasn't totally clear exactly what she was doing until a burst of glitching noises carried through the phone that eventually faded into... quiet laughter? Her voice lacked any sort of aggression as she stood before him, covering her mouth and chuckling at him.

Perhaps she was a little twisted for finding his utter terror amusing, she wondered. His legs quivered, his heart raced, and he had really latched onto that whole "speaking through the phone" thing. She couldn't help but find it endearing, in a way.

As her playful chuckles subsided, her form seemed to fade into the room a little more. Though she was still transparent, her outline stood out more against the dark background of the study. The pale mist that made up her body pulsed a gentle blue that began to glow strong enough to illuminate the shadows around them, and luminous eyes worked in where empty, sullen holes once were. Her hair floated weightlessly behind her, as if suspended in water, while she stared him down with just as much curiosity as he showed for her.

Her billowing dress floated closer to him across the floor as she slowly approached his outstretched hand. Her eyes were actually somewhat cheerful, maybe even a little impish, as she looked down at his peace offering. She reached her hand out towards his, and it lingered close by with a moment of hesitation, a waft of coolness radiating from it.

And she swiped her hand into his.

Nothing more than her fingertips would have made contact with his own, if she were solid. Yet as she did, it passed straight through him with a feeling as if a frosty wind had just run through his fingers.

Her gaze came up to his own as her hand lowered back down, clasping her other hand in front of her dress. She watched his expression carefully.

"Florence," she introduced with a slow blink, seeming more lucid. "Mrs. Florence Martin, wife to the late Theodore Martin."

 

[Troldmand]

The Masked Man observed as Florence's shape and visage shifted to yet another form, and couldn't stop himself from drawing conclusions. It was perhaps the first sentence of her body he could learn, and the gist revolved around subsiding anger. Her monstrous appearance had only lasted for as long as the lady of the house felt fury, but as their little conversation dragged on, the calm gave way for features he would assign to a living human. Anger, monstrosity, and calm, and humanity. A collection of spiritual nouns had etched themselves into his memory, if he was ever again to come across a restless soul.

He was mesmerised. It was as though he had taken a plunge into the sea, and came to face a siren of myth and legend, as he glanced at the gentle glide of Florence's dress, and her ethereal strands. But there was a dark shadow to her grace, that The Masked Man tried time and time again to puzzle out. Did she drown? Did the last beat of her heart leave her suspended in the sea of spirits? He didn't know enough, and he had no wish to be nosy with his questions.

"Mads," he told Florence as they finished their strange handshake. He gave the palm of his hand a brief glance, feeling the freezing touch of Florence. Nothing, save for the uncomfortable sensation. "Matthias, actually. Schoff. Living a happy life on the edge, and on my own."

"Glad to meet you, Mrs. Martin. Don't mean to be nosy, Mrs. Martin, Florence?" he struggled to settle on one form of address. "Why are you hanging out in this place, when you could be wherever Mr. Martin is? Wouldn't he also be flying around here or there?"

 

[Daisie]

Something sparked within Florence as soon as Matthias inquired about her presence, namely her separation from her late husband. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, her glowing form faltering like an old bulb. Some part of her understood it wasn't Mads's fault he traipsed across such a raw subject, but nonetheless, a twinge of offense coursed through her mind.

"Oh, I should hope not," she begun with a startling bluntness, hands balling into fists as her eyes flashed subtly. "I'd rather die again than be trapped with that rotten swine."

But the anger waned as quickly as it came. Her chest shrunk, sending a resigned sigh into the air that puffed to frost. Her head lowered, regretting her harsh tone. Her voice came out soft again.

"I do... miss him. Once in a while."

"I don't know why I'm here. Not anymore. Maybe I never knew. I've forgotten if I did, at one point." She lifted her gaze back up to the young man. She wasn't positive what compelled her to keep speaking with this stranger. Perhaps it had just been too long since she actually spoke with someone - since someone didn't stare past her, flee in fear, or wander her abode with a camera and a flashlight as if she were some spectacle. "There doesn't seem to be anything left for me here, but... here I am, all the same."

She tilted her head. "Perhaps all those who are murdered are trapped here... wherever I am. Perhaps there is work left to be done. A puzzle not yet solved. I stopped searching for an answer a very long time ago, when the years began to stretch into decades. I can still hardly believe I'm here, in the 1900s."

Then a pause. Something began to hatch through her mind. Something unorthodox, and perhaps a bit bizarre. A devious idea, indeed.

"I have heard... of a certain method. A method to allow us from the other side to pass on through a binding contract between one of the mortal flesh and one of the departed." Her eyes settled on him with intention, a low feeling of mischief hovering about as she hovered forward towards him by only a foot's length. "Yes. The one contract. The, um... Anima Damnata. It is by this contract that a spirit may be bound to a subject of the mortal world... for a time."

She only floated closer, untroubled by her invasion of his personal space. "Tethered to her mortal, the contract demands her service to him. Only then may the debt to the spirit realm be satisfied."

 

[Troldmand]

Mads listened to her story with a tinge of professional interest. Theodore had become on the murder map of his mind a very important variable to the mystery of Florence's origin. He felt the chill in the air get even colder as she touched on the subject of her late husband, and the things she had to say about him were not very flattering. So then, if it happened to be a case of drowning, then Theodore could have had a role to play? Folks those days had all kinds of ideas about the ideal marriage, and Mads had even his time seen a few couples with a similar story to tell. He was not yet sure if this map of his would come in handy, but only time could tell.

As Florence flowed closer to him, the chill grew more intense, and Mads could at one point see his breath. It was as though Florence brought with her elegant glide along the old floor a month of January. He made sure to hear her offer out in any case, even as the frost pushed him into a slight shiver. He tiptoed back, trying to maintain a foot or two between him and her. To avoid the cold, and the unease he felt gazing into those undead eyes from far too close. But then he bumped again against the side of the darned mahogany table. So much trouble around so mundane of a furniture item.

He pondered over the point she was bringing their conversation towards. Unfinished business, a gap in memory, and a costly divorce reaching beyond the grave. All very dramatic, and enough to earn him a ward at the asylum if he ever chose to relate the tale to his living compatriots.

Then he heard the word he hoped she would never come to say: a contract. Or, as Florence had put it, a supernatural bond between the members of two existential planes, entitled Anima Damnata. Immediately, he knew what he had brought upon himself. Another contract, and this time with a client, who can't even pay. Except, perhaps, pay by sparing his life. It was a situation without an obvious way out, but Mads had no matter what had to weasel his way out of this deal, already weighed down by another.

"Uh," he said, and swallowed his breath for a moment. "I can see where this is going, Mrs. Martin. I would love to help, but--"

He sneaked to the side, breaking their eye contact, and backed off with a careful frightened step around the old ghost, and closer towards the exit. The closer he drew there, the warmer he felt the air in the house.

"I have a dealer to catch. I need to fix my head. And if I don't, someone I work for will not be very happy. Then we will both be ghosts. Maybe, uh, I could handle that one first. Then I come back, and we settle our grudge. It looks like you got plenty of time on your hands, anyway. "

 

[Daisie]

"It looks like you got plenty of time on your hands, anyway."

Mads struck a harsh nerve with Florence. "Plenty of time? Plenty of time?" She thought. She'd been dead and alone for at least fifty - probably closer to a hundred - years. He didn't understand just how right he was. She was tempted to end him, herself, if that would've doomed him to the same fate, but she exhibited careful control over her action. As he began not-so-subtly inching around her towards the door, a brief slap of wind hit the window, almost like a huff of defiance, yet Florence was intentional in keeping her form presentable as best as she could, besides another faded flicker of her swirling frame.

Instead, as Mads passed by her, she followed him, leaning back and reclining into the air behind her with as much ease as hovering through the depths of space. Mystic dress of fog and cloth frilled up and about.

"Is that so?" She remarked. Not only did she seem much more lucid now, but also much more fickle.

Instead of letting Mads get ahead of her, Florence drifted alongside, laid out sideways as he approached the door - well, the archway with the door on the ground.

"The ones who ruined their bodies... their bodies are much more ruined now," she pointed out to him with a casual matter-of-factness, as if she hadn't been the murderous intent behind their fatality only minutes before. In fact, it wasn't clear whether she was merely making an acknowledgement or swiping a subtle threat by him. "The woman who tried to take that gun, she still rests on your side of the plane. Alive. Though she fled when the chandelier fell."

By the time Mads had inched up to the door out of the study, Florence had drifted nearly all the way upside-down, her curious eyes centered on him.

"She has a hole in her hand, Mads. Will you fix her, too?"

 

[Troldmand]

"Dammit," Mads thought. The confines of his mind had become the only place, he hoped, where he retained his free will, as Florence spelled out to him in rather direct clues, what could befall him otherwise, should he give his escape another shot. He saw the threshold, his escape was a mere step away. How could anything be so close, and yet completely out of reach? He wished to let out a frustrated sigh, but knew what it could cost him. He had to be polite faced with the lady of the house, whom his recklessness had already put right on the edge between elegance and monstrous fury.

"She's what we call "collateral damage" in the trade, and I ain't no doctor," he told Florence. He walked the razor's edge -- balancing his emotions, holding his irritation on a leash. He wanted to argue, to have things pan out the way he intended, but then he would have to pay a price that the junkies Florence alluded to had paid before. He felt a little like an angry hound, held on a leash, but barking and thrashing about and pulling on it, hoping to chase down something that provoked the beast's anger.

It was time to make a decision. Mads swallowed his pride, and for once thought past his wants. It wasn't as simple of a gig as he had been on over the years, nothing like them. He had lost, and he had to play by the rules. So, with a tinge of reluctance in his sigh, and the irritated look in his eyes, he again extended his hand to Florence. It was neither a deal nor a surrender, but something in between. He had done it more out of muscle memory this time, from so many deals struck in the days past, even though he felt Florence's ghostly hand would anyway glide right through his.

"Fine. I don't know if I need to spill my blood, or spin around a couple times, or what the ritual is. If there even is one. So here's my hand." he said. "Just, please, once we figure this out, we go our separate ways. I don't want no ghosts bound to me, it's already a pain dealing with the Hawthorn. But..."

He had remembered something, and for a brief pulled his hand halfway back.

"If you bind to me, and I have to solve your problem, then you gotta help me with one of my own. If I don't find and get the money out of that dealer, Dennis or what his name was, I'll be joining you next time my employer pays me a visit. So, it'll have to be a favor for a favor kinda deal. Skewed a bit to your side, but, it's not like I'm left with much of a choice. Still a deal?"

He extended his hand again, looking down into Florence's eyes, herself suspended upside-down.

"I don't think I can shake your foot, though."

 

[Daisie]

Florence found little surprise in Mads's callousness towards the woman she'd blasted a hole through earlier. In fact, she found herself in agreement - helping an intruder of her house didn't sound overly exciting, so she was pleased he didn't care. She collected more about him every word he spoke. His worldview, his wit, and most evidently, how he reacts under pressure. She found him... impressive. For a mortal.

When Matthias offered his hand forward and braced himself, Florence's ghastly body dispersed, the mist loosening up like regular fog before folding back in on itself, reforming into her humanlike shape, this time right-side up.

"Like I said," Florence explained, her ever-changing face curling to a smile. "A spirit's debt may be paid through service to the mortal world. Perhaps then, through that payment, I might move on. Thus, my soul is lead by your hand."

She stopped only momentarily. "Or... something like that."

Yet there was hesitation when Florence finally got around to looking down at Mads's hand. It was if her mind had gone completely blank. Pale white eyes sat staring at his palm for a few long moments before she directed her gaze rather intentionally towards the dagger on the floor of the study.

She reached her hand towards it, but stopped. The mood of her form shifted slightly in that moment - tightening.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Out," she insisted, teeth suddenly grit.

"Out where?"

"Just out."

A pause.

"You're running away, aren't you?" He asked.

An arrow of terror struck through her heart. A glimmer of the decorative dagger he fiddled with shined past her eye.

"No," was all she said.

"Then where are you going?"

A long silence settled between the two.

She swallowed. Prayed he wouldn't notice.

"To the bakery. To get a fresh loaf for dinner."

And a horrible, knowing stare lanced through her skull.

"Be back quickly, then."

Florence blinked.

Her hand shifted away from the dagger on the ground, redirecting towards the upturned bookshelf. Beneath the fallen shelf, the limp hand of the woman laid, directed towards the kitchen knife that had dropped from it. Despite the kitchen blade being farther from Florence than the decorative dagger, she settled with vigor on that one.

The knife slid across the floor, scraping against the wooden boards, until finally it whipped upwards to meet Florence's hand. Well, as best as it could - the solid object, as it was wielded by her, dwelt inside her balled-up fist, the handle stuck down the center of her wrist.

Her head then turned towards Mads, ominous. She stared him straight in the face when she abruptly reached out and tightened a grip around his extended hand. The biting cold encompassed it entirely, and though there was not one moment where he could feel the touch of her skin, he found his hand petrified into place, locked in the air.

"Don't move, then." Her tone lowered, and her eyes flickered with a strange, vengeful look.

His hand was compelled to twist over, his palm facing the floor, and without delay, Florence took the knife to his arm. Three quick swipes on the back of his wrist was all she carved - cuts deep enough to draw blood, yet not enough to maim. The piercing temperature burned coldly at the fresh wound. A simple triangle was left, its point facing towards him.

Three quick slices. That seemed to satisfy the depraved expression behind Florence's eyes. The knife clattered to the ground loudly, and the choking, immaterial grip around Mads's hand was loosed.

"Signum Damnatum, of the Anima Damnata," Florence raised her hands to the air, dramatically. "Hereby accept our terms. Bind flesh to spirit, spirit to service, and service to flesh. May they never break, until contract is met, unto eternity."

Florence blinked, then pointed towards the bloody wound she left him with. Completely unbothered. "See, because of the... the three points."

 

[Troldmand]

Mads could well see how much Florence revelled in the circumstance. He couldn't hope to picture, what it must have felt like, to be rejected by life and death both, and to chance upon someone pushed by the situation to help her find the peace she so longed for. On the outside, his expression remained about as cold and indifferent as before, although on the inside, he couldn't help himself but smile. She had won, and she enjoyed the spoils. It reminded him of his younger days in the gang, and how such little victories gave him some semblance of hope for the future. She knew the way of the street, and Mads found her ways endearing, though himself the victim of her skill.

Then she froze, her eyes locked on the old knife beside the crushed woman's hand. It was almost as though the knife had upon looking at it petrified the lady of the house. He didn't understand why, and his gut advised him to stay still. It resembled one of her earlier episodes, but this time, it was the old knife that suspended her somewhere between the here, and there. Theories had naturally began to take shape again in the headhunter's mind. Was it really a drowning? She spoke so ill of her late husband, and that knife had in his eyes only brought misfortune on the wielder. It could have been, that the blade had more blood on it than met the eye.

"Hello?" Mads asked, his voice gentle. Nothing.

Florence's episode struck as suddenly as it finished, and Mads' theories gained more ground as she left the old decorative knife alone. There had to be something about it, he knew it. A haunting memory etched into the blade. But it was not yet the time for nosy questions, though in the back of his head, Mads had toyed with the idea to hold on to the knife, until other times, and now was the time to finalize a new deal.

"Don't move?!" he hissed to Florence. Stinging feeling of the kitchen knife as it cut shapes of blood on his palm, and the cold burn of Florence's frigid spirit-hand as it very literally engulfed his, had made it a serious challenge for Mads to stay completely still. Almost involuntarily, he tried to yank his arm back, or to jump away from the ghost. But he persevered, albeit with a groan or two, and his eyes never once followed Florence's hand, as she enjoyed her time carving a piece of art into his palm. Somehow it hurt him less, if he refused to confront what hurt him.

He backed off once the piece was finished, a sigh of relief escaping his lips.

"You had a good time, didn't you?" he asked her, his tone both annoyed, but also ironic. They were not too far apart, Florence and him.

"Signum-goddamn-Damnatum, and your three points..."

He sighed, and shook his head.

He studied the bleeding triangle on his hand. He couldn't hope to decipher it, to prove whether it was necessary, or part of some elaborate play. There was room for it to be either-or. It could have bound him to Florence until he upheld his end of the bargain, or maybe Florence had just wished to exact a fair bit of revenge on him early on. In his state of mind, he leaned towards the former. One could never be certain with ghosts, or ghouls, or whatever other stuff of spooky stories could have been lurking out there. It was what it was.

He turned his attention back on Florence.

"If it's done, then..."

He glanced behind him, on the threshold leading out of the room, and then turned back to face Florence.

"We have to get the girl. The one you used for target practice. That massive hole in her hand, I doubt it'd be hard to track her down. We find her alive, we get a lead to our dealer."

He gestured Florence to follow as he made his way downstairs. To the dining room. The stench of sweat and alcohol the two of them had become so accustomed to, was exacerbated further on by the scent of fresh blood from the man with a face turned with the help of Mads' fists into an unrecognizable mess. The gun still lay there in the corner, right where Florence had manipulated it to do its cruel deed towards Ann, the only survivor of the massacre at that point.

Mads had even thought twice before reaching out for it. He imagined the gun jump away from him, and taking a crack at his hand, this time. For all he knew, so much time spent undead could make all kinds of devious ideas visit Florence's head. So he turned to her momentarily.

"No more tricks, please." he told her, and grabbed the gun. Nothing. For now, anyway. So he took to inspecting the room.

"Look for something red and interesting. Unless you have bandages lying around, I don't think she could rush out of here all clean."

***​

Ann overheard the commotion upstairs. Heavy things falling down, bones being crushed with loud cracks. She was near-hysterical, and deep down the realization hit her, that no one is coming back from that haunted room. This whole haunted house, for that matter. She had to get out of this hellhole, or she would any time be joining her former friends in death. She couldn't even picture how, with that violent monster with a mask, and a whole damn ghost.

"I'm so sorry," she whimpered.

She did feel sorry; for all three of her partners in illegal pleasure, even though they had not known each other for long. It wasn't her guilt, and yet she felt haunted by it, as she struggled to raise herself up, and stay up. Her legs shaking, her vision blinded around the edges, and her clothes drenched in now-cold and dried splatters of blood from her wound, which she tried to cover with all the fading strength in her other hand. But it kept bleeding, sipping the life out of her body with every passing minute.

She stumbled out of the dining room with an awkward, almost drunken gait. She clung to the wall as she dragged herself down the hallway and to the exit, leaving a bloody smear on the wood, and the few paintings nailed to it. She grabbed the door handle, and pushed it down, swinging the door open, and sending her reeling out of the building, and on to the pavement just in front of the entrance. Her bloodied hands landed on the concrete, painting it scarlet.

"Can you just stop?" she cried, looking at the gaping wound, half-delirious.

She could treat it herself, if only she had made more haste before, but the clarity of her mind had become all too clouded by this point. She stood up again, her legs so feeble, it was almost as though they could snap like twigs at any moment, and send her to the ground again.

She stumbled, and stumbled forward, in an ever-changing and hopeless direction. Sobbing, and sobbing, thinking back to the series of events that took her from a promising student life in one of Boston's many colleges, to clinging on to the few sparks of life still left in her body. How one wrong twist of fate brought her to this ruin. How her only company had left her behind, and then perished themselves, and now there was no help coming for her. It was almost funny to her as her delirium gained strength: how she was dying in the middle of a bustling city, skyscrapers shining light just across the channel, and yet there was no one around, save for her, and her last thoughts.

She was cold, shivering. Her vision blurred, and her thoughts slowed. She fell first to her knees, and then on her side, curling up into a ball. She felt warmer that way, and the warmth gave her some momentary comfort. It brought back memories of home, and her loved ones, back from the brighter days. She cried, but the tears of pain had gradually turned to some sort of happiness and closure, as her pain began to fade away along with her life.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her speech slurred.

Her guilt now revolved around so much more. Not just the other tenants of the haunted house, but also her parents, her siblings, her true friends. So many people she had let down, and so many things given to her that she had wasted. All with one terribly wrong decision taken.

 

[Daisie]

As Mads slipped from the study and descended the stairway, Florence lagged behind him, her observant, curious gaze stuck to the back of his head. As her dress swept across the floorboards silently, a cool wind - not nearly as harsh as the wintry gales she'd been kicking up before - stirred in his wake, leaving a small trail of disturbed dust behind him.

By the time the Mads reached the bottom, though, Florence had begun to wither just a little. It had been so long since she'd put any sort of attention into her spirit's form. With every moment, she strained to mimic the countenance of the woman she once was, though if she were being honest with herself, she couldn't quite remember if that image was at all accurate. Her physical body, no doubt, had long rotten away by now, so the best she could do was try sculpt around the echo. The echo of a memory of a dead woman.

Her form wavered and dispersed, fading into nothing as she followed behind him. Her exhaustion grew more than it was worth to keep up an appearance... at least, an appearance that would leave Mads somewhat at ease. Something suited to disguise her spirit as something gentler.

Nonetheless, her disembodied gaze hung over the living room. She hardly paid attention to Mads's instruction, instead caught up on her abode. Florence pitied the mess that was made everywhere, but the more she scanned across her house, the more she recognized how little of the mess was due to Mads and those drug dealers of his. Every corner blackened under mold and rot, nearly every inch of the walls were marred with uncouth words and imagery, and every piece of furniture was faded, torn, matted, and barely recognizable.

The blood really didn't make a difference. Not anymore.

A somber, upset feeling floated through the air as Florence took a few moments to mourn. While she remembered her relationship with her husband being... complicated, there was one thing she knew she loved more than anything, and that was the house. Not this house, but the one that she lived in, luscious rug under her toes as she'd walk through it by gentle candlelight. She could scarcely believe that time could distort something so horribly.

That was when a trail of crimson spatter across the dining room's floor caught her attention. Only a few drops of blood trailed from that one spot in the corner, indicating some rather rushed movement, but it became more obvious as Florence followed it and found it streaked across the landscape paintings around the entryway. More notably, around the front door's handle. The woman had definitely left the house.

Without so much as a word crackled through Mads's phone, the front door's handle turned from the other room. It creaked on its hinges as it swung open, letting dim, pale moonlight stream through the living room. The porch had a light drizzle of blood leading out and away.

It was then that Mads's phone crackled, the flimsy speaker disturbed again. Although this time, it sounded different. Florence's voice was far more distant than usual, barely audible. It seemed less intentional - almost as if his microphone was eavesdropping on something it wasn't supposed to.

"Oh my-...! It's perfect."

A pause, as there is a wait for some response that isn't there. Afterwards, Florence's voice proceeds, exuberant.

"It's beautiful. We could have a flower garden out front. I could sell them."

Her amused laugh is barely heard behind the static. It's playful, although slightly annoyed.

"I can make money too, you know..."

An uncomfortable space of silence.

"... Well, alright," she seems to concede something. "We'll just have a small one. I can set the table with them, once in a while. How does that sound?"

There's a long moment of quiet, and it's unclear whether there's anything more to be eavesdropped on. Florence doesn't speak, doesn't appear, doesn't move any more objects... Her invisible gaze only lingers on the porch, looking outwards.

But when she does speak, it's as if she's completely oblivious to the play that had sounded through on Mads's phone speaker.

"I think she went this way."

 

[Troldmand]

Mads had busied himself with inspecting the room for a trail. The room was such a mess, the search took much of his focus, so when he turned around to check up on his undead companion, he was a little surprised to see absolutely no one sharing the haunted house with him. Not a sight, and not a sound, as though the whole confrontation was born out of his exhausted mind. He had even considered this possibility; a thought occurred to him, that maybe his encounter with the paranormal had been a product of his near-death by asphyxiation wearing off slower than he first believed. He could have been free to go and do as he pleased again, from this very point, if it had been so.

But the familiar crackle of his phone laid this glimpse of hope to rest, and the subtle note of relief in his expression dulled. He took the phone out, and listened. Florence had experienced a new vision, and this time some of the pieces had fallen into place. He thought back to the rusty grass and dead flowers lining the entrance to the house, and it matched his translucent employer's monologue. A husband with a choking grip over Florence's freedom, and an old knife as the enforcer of his iron will. Mountains turned to dust under the passage of time, but a freak's desire for control over a spouse had always defied it.

A warm tinge of sympathy struck Mads's cold heart as the similar memory of what brought him here flashed before his eyes, but it was hardly the right time. He snapped out of his daydream.

"I think she went this way." he heard Florence say.

The wall. Of course. He walked out to the hallway, and followed the red smear on the wall to the exit, then out of the building. A gust of fresh air engulfed him as he pushed the creaky door open, like taking a cold swim after a long day out in the scorching sun. The stench of blood, and booze, and ages of neglect had dispersed, and he felt his thought become much clearer. Finally, that nightmare of a mansion by the coast was behind him. Not quite all of it, but he was grateful even for a little change of scenery. So he took a deep breath, before shining a small light on his phone on to the ground, and following a trail of red droplets.

"She can't be too far away," he told. He told someone. Florence, he hoped. He couldn't be sure where her restless spirit took her, if she was even around. His gut told him so, but his senses argued back. It would take him some time to adjust, that was for certain.

A while of jogging along the blood trail took them both down to the coastline. There was a channel ahead, and the other side was lit by a line of commercial buildings. Hotels, banks, and offices, still bustling with life even at such late hour. Watching these lights, curled up in a ball, and laid in a pool of her own blood, there was Ann. Her view was not disturbed -- this part of the harbor had long been closed off to the unauthorized, and the last few boats had been towed to better shores. It was only her, the city lights, and the steady approach of her demise.

"She is still hanging in there," Mads said, leaning over her, hand on her throat, trying to gauge her pulse. There was some, already weak, and growing even weaker. It was a miracle even in his experience that she had managed to cling to her life for so long, though she was beyond any doubt drifting away from this shore towards a different world, and the distance covered was too long for her to have any understanding of the moment. Her whole body shivered like a leaf, and her voice was lost. It was to be a death in silence, but a world of pain she was too weak to express.

"Still there, but she ain't speaking in that state," he continued.

Mads sighed, and sat by her side. He was angry, but even in his anger, he maintained a professional calm as best as he could.

"One lead, and she's about to drop dead. What is it with this damn Friday."

 

[Daisie]

A certain note of fascination ran through Florence as she accompanied Mads in spirit - the only way she really could, that is. Her invisible gaze hovered about him, wandering above his head as he trotted along, low-energy and somewhat lost in thought. It really had been quite a while since she had chosen to come out of that forsaken place she called home.

She recalled the last time she looked at the outside world, she figured around the beginning of the 1900s. It was already bustling back then, but as Florence gazed across the Boston skyline from a distance, she found herself shocked at how tall those more distant buildings had become... and how they glowed so brightly, like glistening towers of diamond.

It was so big.

Her attention was snagged, however, when Mads had found his addict, curled up in helpless suffering. Florence wasn't positive how to feel about the young woman. To be frank, there wasn't a fleeting thought of guilt that came through the phantom, the closest thing to that possibly being a shred of pity. She felt secure in her decision to play her games and shoot that gun at her, even as the invader lay bent and quaking in a puddle of blood. Because that's exactly what Florence still viewed her as: an invader.

The static fizzed through Mads's phone speaker again in anticipation for Florence's voice.

"Death doesn't need to stop us."

There was a callousness and a sureness to her suggestion. Something grim cut through the wind.

To Ann, whatever consciousness she clung onto was distorted. Mads knelt by her, yes, but it was all too obvious that he hadn't come alone. Florence stood over her as well, flickering into her sight as if she were lingering at the corner of her vision, unclear and vague.

The faint, warping figure of white brought herself down to Ann's level as if kneeling, looming in closer. Florence's hands hovered forwards, brushing across the woman's cheeks with a ghostly touch.

"You'll tell us," Florence mumbled through the speaker, although to Ann's ears, it echoed out as vivid as a true voice. "Won't you?"

And then there came that feeling.

Florence's spectral fingers pressed into Ann's head from the sides, like piercing her skull with cold picks. Frigid hands dug into her soul, clawing, grasping, and tearing a way in as their forms entwined. The very same air inside Ann's lungs had a biting frigidness to it that chained around her very heart, holding it hostage.

The first instinct would have been to retch and cough, but considering Ann's poor condition, whether that was even a viable option was up for debate. Perhaps this was simply what it felt like to die.

As Florence found hold inside the new mind, a surge of emotion jolted through her. The regret, the guilt, the painstaking fear, it enveloped her being entirely. She wielded in her hand a soul yearning to go back and change the many decisions that lead to this grim fate. It was shocking. Almost moving...

Almost.

And it was just then that Ann's own thoughts spoke to her as if they were her own.

"I can't give up just yet."
"There's something good I can do, still, with this life."
"Maybe there's a way I can stop others from suffering my same fate."
"Stop others from falling victim."

"I need to tell him where Dennis is."
"... If it's with my last breaths."

 

[Troldmand]

Mads felt a surge of dread paralyse him head to toe the moment Florence asked of Ann a favor, in her own supernatural manner. A manner of questioning that had Ann's body contort and writhe for a time while Florence tore her way into the dying woman's soul. He couldn't see the procedure in its entirety, though Ann's unnatural contortions painted him a rough sketch of what it could entail, and the sight was not something he would wish to see. He shuddered at the thought of power Florence wielded in her state, and where an argument between them could lead. This was not a beating, or a threat. This was an invasion somewhere, he believed no one could ever reach. He felt the cold emanate from Ann's body as it had from Florence when she chose to show her true colors, and he knew then, his soul was as open for an attack as his body. Maybe not to Florence, but was she the only one of her kind? He was not so sure any more.

Ann's contortions subsided as Florence's hold over her soul tightened. She had suddenly felt all sense of touch with this world leave her body. She felt weightless, as though suspended in the night sky, cut off from the unpleasant sensations of our reality. It was a relief, a heavy burden she was finally able to shrug off, but her struggle was not over. She thought the thoughts she knew were not her own; they were the words of a spirit that held her captive in her own body, bound to the mortal ground just like the spirit was. She even sensed a spark of anger ignite in her barely beating heart. It was her. She brought all of this suffering on Ann, and now she played with her mind without a second thought.

"I need to tell him where Dennis is."

This pervasive thought reverberated time and again in her mind, and cast a dark shadow over all others. She was compelled to let the thief break into the vault of her painful memories, but another part of her, the one filled with anger and resentment, kept the thief at bay for the time being.

"No! Get out of my head!" Ann screamed. Screamed in the pocket realm they shared with Florence, anyway. To Mads's ear, it was just a faint and shivering murmur that came out. He could not tell any more if it was delirium, or Florence's soul-tearing hands at work.

"There's something good I can do, still, with this life."

Why did she think so? Why did this damn spirit make her ask this question? She saw, in short flashes, the echoes of her life. She saw a strict but caring family, and a letter of acceptance into one of the better colleges in town. She remembered breaking her back to support her studies, and the little parties that brought her joy in those trying times. She remembered the last time she knocked on the door of her childhood home, and the disappointment in the eyes of her closest ones. It was the second time she was trying to become clean, and the second time her progress slowed to a crawl. She had no strength to cry, but her soul very well could.

"Please, just leave!" she begged Florence, her resolve to keep the spirit out now sported a crack that only grew larger, and deeper.

"Maybe there's a way I can stop others from suffering my same fate."

Guilt. That horrible, horrible guilt. It washed over her, it drowned her, it never let her go even as she lay drawing her last breath. Those parties, those devious mouths, those promises of an evening she would never forget, and the painful sting of her first shot. The failed exams, a debt that skyrocketed to unreaspnable amounts, and the constant stench of booze and tobacco that followed her into every den, she made into a makeshift home. Her job lost, her pockets empty, her hand dotted with little punctures. All of a sudden, she found herself sitting at the porch of her family home. The door was shut, and inside played festivie music, and people talked, and danced, and dined. She was not their daughter any longer, nor a sister to her siblings. She was a soul chained to the deepest abyss by the heavy weight of her guilt.

"Stop others from falling victim."

She finally broke down, covering her face as the tears poured down her cheeks. Her guard was down, and the thief could at last see clearly into her memories. She screamed out what she knew at the top of her lungs. To Florence her words sounded clear as day, though in the world of the living, Mads had to lean in closer as Ann began to murmur the clue he and Florence chased after.

"He was trying to use us!" she roared. "He tried to buy us, so we kicked him out. He tried to get me to come with him to some warehouse in Back Bay. Told me I would be safe there. Like we ever felt safe around that creep! Now please get the fuck out..."

Her bout of anger ceased along with her pulse. Ann spent the last vestiges of her strength to confess, and get rid of the angry spirit. So Death had caught up with the poor addict, and Florence felt her grip over Ann's soul loosen. It felt as though Ann's essense dissipated right in Florence's hands, like a fog that cleared come noon. A force unknown to Florence pushed her out of Ann's body, back into the world of the living, where Mads tried in vain to revive Ann. Not so much out of pity, as in the hope of talking more out of her. One push, then another, and no sign of Ann's heart coming back to life.

Mads stood up and sighed, brushing sweat off of his forehead. He had done what he could. It was over for Ann. Part of him felt pity for the young woman, for Ann to break free of Florence's spell after such a vicious struggle to protect her memory. Another part wondered, how Florence's ability could come in handy in his future pursuits. The warm and the cold, the human and animalistic, stuck in permanent conflict over Mads's conscience.

He looked to his phone again. There was worry in his eyes, and uncertainty in his voice.

"I know the place she was talking about. There is only one warehouse in Back Bay that a dealer would go to, and Dennis going there is a sign of some major trouble coming up. It's another gang that operates there, and they better shoot this Dennis dead, or we may be hearing from my employer soon."

He put the phone in his pocket, and looked over the channel, to the skyscrapers on the horizon. Somewhere out there was his elusive dealer, and an end to this horrible gig.

"We go there, we find out what's going on. It's not a long drive. I'm not too sure what to expect from them, but," he thought back to Ann's contorting body. "But you look like you can handle some crap. I think we can make it if we are careful. Just, let's stay away from each other's minds, okay?" he told Florence as he walked back to his old Sedan.

***

"Death doesn't need to stop us."

On this night, I became a part of this tale.

I hadn't heard that one in a long time. A few centuries, at least, if my old memory could be trusted. I'd always had a bit of a fascination with people, or restless spirits, for that matter, that thought they could cheat me. So many people with so many little mortal ideas, and in the end, I'd always been the one to hold their hand as we passed into my domain from theirs, when came their time. Disease, murder, old age. They toiled over cures, they fought crime with policy, and they denied themselves many pleasures to cling on to their fleeting youth. But all of them had been judged by our fair hand, and I oversaw their passing.

This was a fascinating scene. It was not every other day that I had the pleasure of casting so many souls to the depths of Hell, and not every day I could see them go out in style, if you could pardon my expression. Crushed by bookshelves, impaled by a chandelier, strangled to death. It was always a welcome surprise to handle such souls. There was never a doubt over their final destination, so to say. But it was a little more difficult with Ann. That little bird was too gullible for the cruelties of this world. She could never make it, not on those mean streets, and not with her wish to discover.

I saw her spirit sit on the edge of the canal, staring into the distance, waiting for the next chapter of her un-life. So I strode into the scene. There wasn't a form I preferred to call my own. It was by cosmic decree that I must appear to my souls as someone to bring them comfort or discomfort before their judgement. To some, I took the form of a robed stranger, holding in my boney hands a silver scythe. To others, I was an old man keen to play a last game of chess. To Ann, I appeared an ordinary woman. Her mother, in fact, from the years she held most dear -- before she found herself on the streets of Boston.

So I sat down by her side, and gave Ann's hair a gentle caress. I knew she missed more than anything the attention of a loved one. It was something her unfortunate choice of company took from her, and left a scar on her soul.

"It's a beautiful view," I told her. It was not a lie, or an exaggeration. Boston had its rough days, but tonight it shone beautiful colors. "It's sad we have to enjoy it dead, isn't it?"

 

[Daisie]

As Florence willed herself from the body of the stranger she'd inhabited, she found her soul yanked from any brief sense of reality she might have tasted through that living mind. There were hardly words for the experience - words were made by and meant for the living - but Florence had to admit to a sense of loss when she allowed her consciousness to fleet away from that woman's mind. Whether this loss was a type of mourning for the loss of life, or perhaps a deep envy towards the flesh and blood she no longer owned, Florence had little idea, but her spirit's visual form flickered as she stared off into the city's dark skyline.

It was only a few moments later that she realized Mads had been talking to her. Something about rushing off to some other place - to be honest, she followed his adventure very little. Drug dealers, crime, dashing through this confusing metropolis that had only grown since she last roused... She didn't care for any of it.

But at least it was something different.

A coyness came to her vague expression, eyes narrowing at him as her chin sunk down. Wispy strands of fog floated like hair through water behind her as she hovered after him on his trek to his car. His phone speaker crackled, likely suffering from whatever Florence continued to do to it.

"Stay away from one another's minds?" She echoed his words in a strange way. It was a playful tone to her voice. "Are there some arrangement of secrets locked away in the mind of Matthias Schoff that I might gobble away?"

Seemed she had no real sense of the morbidity of the threat she'd just offered. Or even that it was a threat at all. Even after the horrific display she'd just performed for Matthias, she still thought it all some amusing joke. She was entirely detached.