I sometimes regretted joining Locksley and Co. Not often, mind you, but when my boots were filled with mud and my hands too numb to get a smoke bomb off my belt the thought sometimes trickled into my mind.
I glanced back at Much who was still oblivious to the spectre rising behind him and chattering away as though we weren't on a stealth mission in the middle of a forest in the dead of night.
"Much!" I whispered. Ghosts tend not to be too bothered by noise, but it still felt anathema to shout. Either way I don't think Much would have noticed; Robin hadn't been listening for the past half an hour and Much was still going.
Well, he had been still going.
"Much!" Robin's voice cut through the jabbering as a ghostly hand swept over the place where Much's head had been moments before.
Robin was already there with his rapier, and the ghost was wisps of smoke before I could take another breath. I put my smoke bombs back in my belt and looked to where Much now lay on the floor.
He was panting with shock, but Will who had dragged him out of harm's way was already brushing leaves off himself. He looked like nothing had happened. But then Will always looked that calm. He has been stony-faced ever since I met him, that first day at the interview.
I was freshly out of London, sick and tired of the constant bureaucracy of the higher up agencies. London was too full of ghosts and just too damn busy. The competition was wearing.
Somewhere like Nottinghamshire, where the biggest problem in this line of work was slow deliveries - well the biggest problem besides The Problem, the ghost infestation that has been around for the past few decades - this seemed pretty much perfect for me. There was enough work for a handful of agencies, but this place isn't exactly at the heart of things so dealings here are mostly stopping old ghosts spilling from the woods into town.
After training at the biggest agency in the country where the main focus was tangible outcomes and pay rises, focusing on saving people from bad things looked pretty relaxing.
Robin didn't quite present it like that, and that's not what I said when he asked why I wanted to move here, but that's the truth of the matter. He was a bit stony-faced when I first met him too.
"So, Miss-"
"Just call me Djaq." I cut across him quickly.
"Djaq." He looked at me pensively for a few seconds before returning his gaze to my CV on the desk in front of him. It was a small desk for the size of the room. I got the feeling that they didn't normally do business in this library, but they weren't yet ready to let me into their office. I looked down at the CV too.
Half of it was false. Half of it was wasn't. Some of the true bits were the most outrageous. I was hoping they would ask about those bits first.
"You trained with Fitts'?"
The brightly dressed boy, Much, snorted from the chair against the wall and I bristled, but Robin seemed genuinely impressed.
"Best agency in the country, them." He nodded at me.
"Apparently." I shrugged. I didn't like Fitts', not as a whole. It was a spinning wheel made of rotten spokes, slowly poisoning any new parts it gets.
Robin didn't seemed to notice my attitude but the shadow behind him, Will the lanky boy with overgrown fringe, he tilted his head. The slight movement captured my attention for perhaps longer than it should have because when I looked back at Robin he was staring at me.
"Sorry?" I looked down at the table where he was pointing, confused.
"A test, Djaq, to see if your abilities are what you say they are." He repeated.
"Right." I said and picked up the first object.
It was probably a bad idea to be so cavalier about it since it was a rusted knife, and goodness knows what thoughts and feelings could have been attached to it. Luckily, as it sat in my hand I felt nothing but a soft glowing warmth. I got little else than that feeling from it, but it helped settle me so I held it for a few seconds longer before moving onto the rest of the items.
A pocket-watch, a cup, and an old teddy bear.
"The watch is generally happy, although it's hard to tell since there is not much residue attached, so someone who didn't meet too dramatic an end," Robin's eyebrows flicked up curiously, "the knife belonged to someone who treasured it. I think someone who might have been a boy-scout or something equally harmless. Lots of cutting sticks for marshmallows and tying ropes for tents. The cup is something to do with a little girl who died young. Run down by a car I think. And the teddy bear is nothing. It's probably from one of your beds."
I set the bear back down on the table. The room was silent for a second, and then Much let out a loud sigh.
"Well, I must say, that was spectacular Djaq! Really, really well done! I think that deserves a biscuit. Or maybe two! Because, I say, that knife has always troubled me, what it's about – it's my father's you see - and I think you're right, it must have been from his scouting days. He was a scout leader and did lots of those things, you know, camping and the like- before the Problem of course, now it would be far too-"
"Much!"
Robin's shout was loud but not angry. I think he was smiling mostly. Will seemed to be smiling. Or at least he wasn't frowning at me like he had been a few minutes ago. I smiled back.
Robin stretched a hand out to shush Much, and then stretched the other out to me. I looked down at it.
"Welcome to the team Djaq."
I beamed widely and shook his hand.
His hand was sweatier than it looked. Even with the cold night air, Much still managed to have clammy hands. He held on slightly longer than was totally necessary once I'd helped him up, but I didn't blame him. He had almost been ghost-touched, to be fair.
"You're alright Much." Robin patted him on the shoulder. This wasn't the place for questioning whether you were alright. You either were or you were dead.
There was a rustling over the ridge and we all tensed. Much gripped my hand harder.
"We should keep moving."
Will's head popped up and we all, I think, felt the urge to give him a good kick.
"Don't do that!"
"Will!"
"Grrr"
I froze. The boys were still mucking about, and Will was trying hard not to look pleased with himself, but all of the hairs on my arms and neck had risen and I felt certain we were not alone.
Mostly because there was a dark hulking figure standing right behind Will growling at us.
"Look!" I yelled as for the first time tonight a smoke bomb successfully left my hand.
Sometimes this team worked well. The term 'well-oiled machine' comes to mind. Not a particularly modern or fashionable machine, but smooth and effective.
This was not one of those times.
"Ahh!"
Much's screaming made it all seem more chaotic than it was, but it was still something of a mess. Robin's elbow made solid contact with Will's stomach as he tugged his sword out of its scabbard. As Will bent double groaning he missed Much's wildly thrown salt-bomb, but not Much's hand which came back to smack him around the head.
The ghost disappeared and Will dropped. Robin and Much turned to each other in relief and I tried not to scream. These boys.
We had been in the forest for less than six hours, but I'm pretty sure we had scoured most of it. We were in search of a Cold Maiden who had been pestering a nearby housing estate for over a month. Nobody had been that bothered, but last week someone was ghost-touched and now the whole community was certain that the usual precautions weren't going to protect them.
So they called us in. Locksley and Co, the youngest detective agency in England. Not that there are many pensioner agencies; ghost-detection is a young-man's game.
Or young-woman's game. I mostly didn't mind being the only girl in the agency. It meant I didn't have to share a room with Much like Robin did or run the risk of someone 'accidentally' borrowing my clothes.
But sometimes it meant that I was left alone with buffoons in a forest in the middle of the night.
"So that didn't look like a Cold-Maiden." Will said when we had started moving again.
"No, it looked more like a Limbless." Robin mused.
"With limbs?"
"Yeah, fair point. Wraith?
"It had too much substance. Raw-bones?"
"No, the spectre described was definitely female, even if what we saw was a bit shapeless."
"Maybe we haven't yet met our visitor."
"So we just ran into a stray?"
"The forest is full of strange things Will!" Robin span around gleefully and Will looked at me.
"I know," I nodded sympathetically, "he's mad."
Will gave a laugh and the darkness seemed a bit brighter.
Or maybe that was just the light from the ghost behind him. It made the same growling noise as the other ghost, but I don't think it looked much like it. I didn't hang about to inspect though, the cold was increasing and miasma building.
"Run!" I grabbed Will by the collar just as a transparent hand reached out as though to stroke his hair.
The wind whipped around our faces, the mud squelched beneath our feet, and the ghost kept close behind us.
It's strange for a ghost to be able to move so far from what tethers it to this world, its Source.
"Robin-" I yelled, "I don't think this is just some stray!"
Robin opened his mouth to reply, and yelped as he tripped and rolled. Much went to stop, but I grabbed the back of his jumper and pushed him onwards. "Keep moving! He'll be fine."
And I was right. The ghost completely ignored Robin and fixated on us. It was coming too fast for rapiers, so it had to be-
"Salt-bombs! Much throw them!"
Much threw and the parcel exploded against a tree, but the ghost didn't seemed too bothered. It just flitted out of the way. In amongst the shadow and other-light I'm pretty sure I saw a ghostly grin.
What was this?
We kept running through the forest, Robin somewhere far back was hopefully thinking of a way to help. The sound of running feet approached and I think I panted out a sigh of relief, but when I turned to look it wasn't Robin and I'm not sure it was helping. Someone with dark greasy hair rammed into me and we rolled across the forest floor, as Robin had done minutes ago.
"Who are you?" I snatched my arm away but the boy didn't have time to answer before we were flattened again.
Really, how many times could a girl get knocked down in one night?
It turned out we weren't the only gang in the forest.
The greasy haired boy who had mown me down came with two sidekicks. One of them was with Will in a clearing up ahead, a tall boy with light brown hair and a grin that seemed far too relaxed for this kind of night. It widened when he saw us coming.
'Us' being me, the greasy boy, and Robin, who had knocked into us. He claims he thought the boy was a ghost, but I think he knew he was one of the Gisbourne kids. They all have those black leather jackets and too-tight trousers. I seriously think it might be part of the uniform to be incorrectly measured for trousers, because both Greasy and Grinning looked to have been.
"There you are, Guy! All safe and sound then?" the grinning boy asked as though we were bumping into each other on a street corner.
Guy glared, "Not quite, there's still a ghost out there." He paused and looked around, completely ignoring the three other people present, and his tone changed suddenly "Allan, why are you alone? Where's Marian?"
"Ah, she's probably around somewhere nearby. Calm down Guy, she can't be far. We'll hear if she's in any danger."
You know sometimes when somebody tempts fate so openly that fate has no choice but to follow through with it?
Yeah, this was one of those times.
All of us span around as a loud scream pierced the night. It wasn't quite at banshee level, but it was pretty impressive.
But then Much had always been an excellent screamer.
Much and the girl, Marian, were pressed up against a tree with swords out when we got there, hardly a hundred feet away from where we had been standing moments ago. The shape that had been following us all night was in front of them and from the looks on their faces it was worse from the front than the back. Marian was wielding a sword and Much the power of his lungs. His screaming was almost worse than the ghost.
"Much!" Robin shouted and Much took another deep breath.
"Quiet Much, that's not helping!"
Much found time to send a hurt look my way.
The others were more effective, with Will and Allan seamlessly covering the spectre with an iron net, causing it to fade. But there wasn't time to take so much as a celebratory breath before it reformed between them. Their swords were out but the ghost was reforming quicker than they could swipe.
Robin had pulled Much and Marian away from the tree, but Guy was nowhere to be seen.
I reached for my belt to find only one last canister there. The one for emergencies.
Well, looking around I was pretty sure now was the moment. The ghost was clearly overpowering the boys and Much was paralysed by fright. Robin and Marian I think were arguing – arguing! At a time like this! – and oblivious to the spectre growing larger in front of them. It was growing before me too, but I ducked and dived in time, landing in a soft bush a little way away from the rest. I took the space to grab the canister and threw. I yelled a warning as it flew through the air, but really, what were they going to do?
It exploded.
In the aftermath I like to think the others were impressed with my quick-thinking and skills, even if they didn't say it. None of them were doing anything nearly as helpful, except perhaps Will and Allan, but they were about to be overtaken at any second. They should have thanked me, or at least shown some sort of appreciation.
"For goodness sake, Djaq!"
"Ow, my ears!"
"My eyes!"
"What did you do that for? We had it handled!"
"I'm not being funny, but that was not helpful."
Before I could respond to the barrage of gratitude, there was a rustling in the bushes behind Robin and Marian. We all turned and armed ourselves with what tools we had left, ready to fight-
Guy. His hair was wilder than before, now with mud and leaves in it, and his leather jacket was torn at the shoulder, but he was holding a box and looked incredibly smug.
"If you're all done bickering, we can get this to a furnace."
We all looked at the box in his hands.
Ah. The source.
That'd probably be why it stopped so completely. Less industrial-strength bombs and more effective professional action.
"Good thinking, Guy." Allan said lightly, as though we hadn't been in the middle of a full-on Djaq-roasting.
"Yes, well while you were all making a fuss, I did some real work."
"I would have done if these oafs hadn't gotten in the way." Marian folded her arms and took a decided step away from Robin.
"Hey!" Robin cried, "These are the finest oafs in England!"
"Yet they are still oafs, are they not?" Marian pursed her lips at him.
"That's not necessarily a bad thing."
"Speak for yourself." Will muttered to me.
Looking at him properly, he was probably the worse off of us from all the fuss, with several holes in his jumper and mud pushed up into his hair.
"That jumper was new." I said sadly touching one of the holes on the arm.
He shrugged, "it's okay. I liked it while it lasted."
"Much can probably sew it up."
Will gave a snort of laughter and shook his head. "Don't worry about it. It's not the last Christmas present not to make it through the day." He nodded over at Much's new scarf, now being used to dab at a cut on his face.
"Yeah." I said, looking across at the group. Guy had joined in Marian and Robin's argument, and Much was tending to his various injuries. We were still in the middle of the forest without the ghost we had come in to get, and with several hours before dawn. I was certain those hours would be spent searching and arguing and trying to prove that we were better than the Gisbourne lot. Robin never could let go of something.
Allan wandered over to me and Will with a flask of tea in hand. He nodded back at the group with a look of amusement and just a touch of resentment that I could totally relate to at this moment in time.
"What a way to spend Christmas, eh?"