"What I would like to know," Officer Raymond asked morosely, "is how the murderer managed to do that without anyone hearing; surely the screams would've drawn attention? I mean yeah, the house is set back a little ways, but—"
His partner, Keith, shook his head; his eyes were filled with a dark pool of disgust. "There was no disturbance on entry; they came in through the back screen door, and she was right there. She's got a broken neck—thank God she wasn't alive for the rest of it."
Warbled voices of the neighbours who surrounded them, pressed back only by a flimsy yellow tape, flitted in and out of the harshly lit afternoon. Someone seemed to be crying.
Raymond clucked his tongue despairingly. "And that her own child had to see it? Christ..."
"Speaking of which," Keith pulled at the lapel of his jacket, his words crisp and blunt, "I'm going down to the station now. You stay here with the rest of the lads and settle up."
"You're going to talk to her now? Have some... I don't know—have some reverence."
An eyebrow rose. "Reverence? Shit happens, you've been on the job, you know how it is. There's no point shielding anyone from the truth when apparently that's what sets us free."
The child was small—nine years old—and her skinny frame and diminutive stature made her look younger. She seemed to be lost; her wide eyes were slightly vague and uncomprehending, her fingers pulling at the soft fabric of her cotton jumper.
"A big black dog?" Keith smiled and she nodded solemnly.
"Not just a normal dog though—like really, really, really big. And no one else could see it."
Keith set down his notepad and chewed on the inside of his cheek. Other officers, he reckoned, would take it slow; deliver the information in sound bites. That wasn't his way. He had grown up rough himself and he believed it a disservice of the greatest kind to patronise, to pretend that the shadows didn't exist.
"It wasn't a dog." He said gently—God knew he tried, at least, but his words still came out gruff.
"It was sir, I saw it—"
"A dog as big as you say? A dog that no one else could see?" He vividly saw the corpse and gave himself a mental shake. "No dog did that to your mother, kid." He paused to take a breath. "She was murdered."
The child's widened. Daunted only slightly, he pressed on. "And I reckon if we work fast, we can get the person who did this." The girl had not seemed to move, so he softened his voice. "Crimes happen. But it's our job to fix it. And you need to help us." He gave her a second or two to process it.
When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper. "But the dog that I saw—it wasn't real then?"
"Are you sure it was a dog? Not a person—something that you covered up because it scared you; you imagined something less threatening than what you actually saw?"
"The dog was plenty scary, sir."
There was something wrong with this child. Her large eyes were soft with some strange knowledge, her bottom lip trembling. Keith was sure the dog she had mentioned was sure to be of some important link—some repressed memory that had led to the blood streaked walls—but she could not unlock it.
"I've seen things like this before," she continued. "Mum always told me I was imagining—not as scary as the dog; eyes in the dark, things like that, I've—"
He put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "That's alright." He coughed, unused to sentimentality, "I'll get Laurie down here to get you some food and anything else you want. Rest, first."
The girl nodded and he stood to leave, shutting the door behind him softly and nodding at Laurie to go in.
It was only when he was walking down the corridors that he realised that he was afraid.
The girl had no living relatives: the mother had been an only child; her grandparents were long dead. There was an aunt somewhere down south, but she appeared to be untraceable. There were no records of a father.
An orphanage seemed, in this case, to be the most appropriate of solutions. Saint Jude's Chapel was Catholic in name alone; it was a an ornate, subdued mansion from some long-forgotten era with delicate murals that brightened the inner walls in a stark contrast to the grave and imposing gargoyles that were carved into its stone facade.
For the most part, its inhabitants were happy and content; they were more than well cared for: they were loved. And the women clad in muslin and starched aprons who looked after the lot tried very hard to love her as well.
The children, on the other hand, did not try at all.
"She's mad as a hack, that one!" Donovan Louis could be heard to gleefully proclaim loudly at least twice a day—in truth it was his own fear that made him want to frighten—"Seeing things like she does. Gone loopy." He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes, hissing as he did so. The girl in the corner did not look at him; she had seen something more troubling through the spiderweb lace-crack windows.
"See how she doesn't even hear me!" Donovan said, standing up, to the murmured agreements of the class. "Loopy, loopy, do you even hear me? Who're you talking to?"
Her indifference only frightened him; he became wilder in his attempt to drag this strange waif of a girl onto a plane he could understand. With long strides, he crossed over to her and yanked her thin braid.
"Oi, I'm talking to you! D'you hear what I said?"
"Stop it!" The girl squealed, pulling herself free of Donovan's grip. "I wasn't even doing anything to you!"
"Then what were you looking at, then? Fairies?"
She pressed a thumb into her aching scalp and waited for half a beat. "Nothing."
A little bit more relieved, Donovan's face cleared. "Yeah. You're right. You saw nothing. Nothing that was there, anyway."
With a final nod, he crossed back over to his friends.
She turned back to the window, watching.
She was afraid of the dark, scared of the night; but she really needed the loo. Taking a breath to steel herself, she got out of bed and silently crossed the length of the room to avoid waking up the rest of the sleeping children. She cupped a hand to her mouth to stop her trembling and pulled open the door. She wished she had a light—the bathroom was at the very end of the hall. She rushed towards it, sure that something would be tailing her; and it was to her utmost relief that she reached the door safely, her fingers bashed against the light switch, and a welcoming golden pool embraced her as she stepped in and clicked the lock shut.
Once she was done, she splashed some water on her face, feeling slightly feverish. It was only when she turned off the tap, its dull surface blinking dumbly underneath the honey light, that she found the source of the fear that was touching her like ebbing waves against the shore.
"Wait."
The spoken word was papery—the skin was papery, under the harsh light it was revealed to be a thin film that covered a network of bones; there were large, begging eyes big in the emaciated face.
"I'm hungry child." It whispered, it's thin reedy voice crackling, "wait."
The girl stifled a yelp and reached for the doorknob but the woman placed a hand on her forearm; the girl felt her throat close up in horror.
I'm only dreaming, she begged, this isn't real; I'm just imagining things—
The hand dragged her back and she screamed in earnest this time, scrabbling for the door but the skeletal finger was drawing her in—she was getting clawed in the struggle, her skin ripping just like her mother's—she was sobbing now and she could feel its breath on the back of her neck and every hair on the back of her neck stood up, she was going to die—
Jerking around, the light flashing epileptically in her eyes, her fist stretched out and by accident she smashed into the tiny rectangular mirror hanging on the wall—a glistening shard of glass was in her hand and she viciously jabbed it into the wraith, heard its hollow shouts echo in her ears, she felt its own eternal hunger in her own bones; she jabbed again until it let go of her and she fell to the floor, blood trailing down her skin, mingling with the damp.
Through her clouded senses, she could hear a banging on the door and panicked voices coming in from outside. The figure heard them too and she caressed her empty, gaping stomach, gave the child one last, hateful look, and slithered out the window with twisted limbs.
"Open the door this instant!"
She reached forward, weak-kneed and heaving with relief at the sound of a human voice, but the mistress on the other side had her fill of waiting, and the door slammed open before She could even touch the knob.
People littered the hallway: sleepy eyed children wanting to see the cause of the commotion.
"Now look here," the mistress began, but then she settled her eyes on the scene and her mouth formed a small, perfect O. "Dear God," she whispered. "Jennifer," she turned around, "Jennifer, bring the children back now."
The mistress saw the child, small and pathetic, her hair hanging free in clumps from her braid, her arms and face slashed and bleeding, with a shard of bright red glass dripping in her tiny fist.
"Any history of mental illness in the family?"
"Not far as we know of from the father; but we don't know anything about the father. There was depression though, on the mother's side: hereditary; the grandfather had it too. But the mother grew out of it, according to the history."
"Does anyone really grow out it though?"
"They have to, don't they?" Pleading, then fearfully, "They found her all torn up in the house though, didn't they?"
"That was murder. It was confirmed. She didn't do it to herself."
"Ah. All the same—precautions must be taken."
"You're right. Precautions."
I'm not mad, I'm not mad, I'm not mad, please.
Please don't let me go crazy, I don't want to—why can't anyone else see them, please—I don't want to
I want to leave this room, I need to leave this room, I'm going mad
Please help me I'm scared please please please please
It was a year before She decided that she had enough of the pills and the "exercises"; she had enough of the white, clinical room with its medicinal tinge and sad, forlorn air.
And so, she ran.
She had $54.03 in a drawstring pouch, and all her clothes in a weathered velvet carpetbag. When the bloated moon was high in the sky, and the stars speckled themselves across the night, she left like a thief. Three long slashes still remained on her right cheek and a thick woolen coat covered the scars on her arms while a pair of cotton tracks shielded her stick legs.
She didn't bring the pills; the numbness they offered her was frightening. She decided she would rather have the monsters. She still saw them anyway—in glimpses.
She slept anywhere she could find, as long as it was in the city. The darkness meant loneliness, which in itself meant a vastness that scared her. The city always breathed, the city was always alive. When she finished her meagre allowance, she stole. She was good at that. She liked riding the train; she was small and quick enough to slip through the gantries without having to buy a ticket. The best part was when it rained outside, and she was warm with the raindrops on the cold misty window, slithering down quickly; at night they blinked with captured lights from the traffic and headlamps.
Another favourite thing of hers was talking; she was smart about it though—she had already learned to conceal the insanity. A big smile was all she needed; she would sit down next to tourists in their brightly coloured shirts, their cameras bulky and shiny around their necks. How d'you like it here, miss? Are you sure you know how to get there? I'm back from my friend's place—school's just over—I like the weather here, how's the weather like where you're from?
She was a thief, a silver-tongued, nimble-fingered demon whenever she wanted to be, but she never stole from the people who she'd cheerfully strike up a conversation with. She fancied them her friends.
To reward herself for surviving to the ripe old age of sixteen, she'd "purchased" herself a dress from the hole-in-the-wall shop down the street that smelled of mothballs and old sunshine. She was partial to velvet, and a maroon skirt clung to her thin hips while she hunched inside a huge black cardigan.
It wasn't safe here anymore; the police here were especially wary and they'd taken note of her, she could tell. She'd just have to leg it to the next city. There was a bus leaving at midnight and she had another hour to go.
The bus station was a collection of white seats and walls that glowed softly against the night; it was shrouded a little ways off the main city and faced the forests. She dumped her bag against the seats and laid her head against it, watching the clock tick past. She wanted to avoid looking into the darkness of the trees, but of course, her eyes were drawn to it.
A huge dog was waiting in the shadows.
The breath collected in her throat and she felt her muscles tense. The yellowish eyes blinked at her once and she scrambled backwards quickly, slamming into a boy behind her.
"Hey, calm down," he laughed. He had soft, sandy hair and looked about her age. "What is it, anyway?"
"Nothing." She said quickly, smoothing down her skirt with her palms, willing herself not to look backwards; her head however, jerked a towards the general direction and she winced.
The boy craned his neck. "Did you see something there?"
"No!" She snapped, sitting down again, "Well there are trees, obviously."
He sat down next to her. Dropping his voice to a whisper, he spoke again.
"If you did you can tell me, you know."
She glared at him.
"I see things too."
She gave a bark of laughter. "D'you have nothing better to do than make fun of random girls in bus stations at midnight?"
He gave her a wide grin. Now that she looked closer, she could see that he was wearing an odd sort of badge on the collar of his checked shirt: it was small and silver, in the shape of the scythe.
"Let me see," he said, and she found herself inexplicably drawn to him—for the strangest reason, he reminded her of one of the women in the books that they had had at Saint Jude's; a book about lost cultures, lost gods; he didn't look anything at all like the woman (Aphrodite, was that her name?) but he had the same sort of air about him—"Do you see... ah, let's go with the most common one," he winked in the direction of the forest. "Do you see big dogs—and no I don't mean the Danes. Big and black and—" he whistled and the yellowish eyes brought themselves into view again.
She stifled a yelp. "Make it go away." She begged, not realising how furiously she was shaking. "Make it go away, please."
"Hey," he touched her forearm lightly, his forehead creased with concern. "It wasn't going to hurt you; I was just checking."
She took a deep, rattling breath, shaking away thoughts of blood splattered walls and a place she had once called home. She was still shaking. "Checking what?" She asked desperately.
"You're one of us."
"Sorry?"
"You see things other people don't; they tell you that you're crazy, they make you take pills," his mouth screwed up in distaste. "They don't understand us—they're afraid. It doesn't change the fact that what we know is real."
For the first time she had faint glimmer of understanding. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"We're not normal," he said softly, "You and me—and there's loads of us, I'm just one of them—and I don't mean that in a bad way, not in a you're-meant-for-the-hospital way."
His words didn't make sense and she felt herself trusting them so badly because she knew how that felt like. "I still don't know—"
He jerked a thumb at her cheek. "What did that to you?"
She decided to go for the truth. "They told me I did it to myself, but I really didn't. It was this woman thing—like a skeleton, but not really, like some sort of—like a prisoner of war," she tried to put into words the cold and bottomless hunger that the creature had once exuded so long ago but came up short.
"A..." he screwed up his face before settling on a word. "Gods, you've met Limos?"
"You know, I still don't get it."
"Limos was one of the... I'm not too sure of the specifics, but a Greek monster." He pulled his collar open to show her a long scar that ran down his throat and his collarbones. "The dog you saw was a hellhound. More monsters. Before I joined Kronos, I was hunted, just like you. One of them came after me—but once I joined up, I learned how to control them. You and me, we're demigods. Children of the deities, and of the humans they cast aside."
She drank in his words greedily, taking in his face that was lit up with the glow of the greenish fluorescent light.
"So I'm not crazy?" She begged in a whisper. "The things I see—they're real? They must be if you can see them too; and if the monsters are real," she touched her scars lightly, "If they are the Greek Gods you're talking about—they must be real too... Which of them do I belong to?"
He bit his lip. "None. You belong to your mortal parent. You belong to yourself. Not to them."
"My mortal pare—my mum. She's dead." Newfound understanding washed over her. "A hellhound must have done it." Every shadow she had seen, every blink in the distance, suddenly made a fierce, profound sense. "If a god's my dad, where in hell was he?" she hissed.
The boy leaned back in his chair. "They don't care about us. You say your mum—" his voice dropped and he clutched her wrist in support "you say that she's dead. My dad went the same way. The gods don't care about us. You don't know which one of the bastards is your father—they didn't even bother to claim you. We mean nothing to them, d'you understand?"
"I do." She said, a core of white-hot anger burning in her chest; then it quickly deflated again to be replaced by doubt "Are you sure," she pleaded, "Are you sure I'm not mad?"
"We're not," he reassured her. "The world's mad, but not us. And even if we are, it means that everyone's mad, so that's fine." He broke into an easy smile again. "A bunch of us have set up camp around here. D'you want to come along with us now?"
A bubble of childish joy swelled up within her. "Yeah, why not? If what you say is true—and I mean, god, why can't it be—but who are you people?"
"The army of Kronos." His eyes glittered strangely. "We fight the gods. We protect the stranded, the others like us. We take care of our own."
We protect others like us.
"Will you join us?" He asked again, grinning like a schoolboy let off for break, one hand outstretched. She returned the smile and gripped his hand in confirmation. They both stood up, he hoisted her bag on her shoulder and they set off into the wild and lonely night.
"The dog?" She inquired, "The hellhound or whatever?"
"I'll come for it later, seeing as you're scared of it." He paused. "I'm going to need your name, you know. I'm Richard, by the way."
"Richard." She repeated, letting the word roll around, converting it to something familiar. They stopped at a traffic light, letting the vestiges of the lonely, late night traffic slide by, the bright reds and oranges winking.
"And you are?"
"Elizabeth." She said, watching the red fade into green. "I'm Elizabeth."