++++++ Another day, another chapter.
Please enjoy.
I do not own ++++++
Seventeen
I was scratching my back the same time as we crossed the campus back to the Delta-Gamma sorority house. It was like a new tattoo but a few weeks after it had healed, the flesh was itchy and I wanted to scratch it off with a cheese grater.
John looked sideways at me and shook his head as I scratched. "Bloody hell, luv." He went up the stairs first and knocked on the door, waiting for it to be answered.
Minutes later, Lily King opened the door, it looked like she'd been crying. She froze when she saw me standing there. "What the hell do you want?" she sobbed.
"Start with the drug then we'll go from there," John told her.
Lily seized up, her red and puffy skin going pale. She shook her head. "I've done drugs," she confessed, leading us inside, "I've done drugs but never in my life have I had dreams like that before…every time I close my eyes I keep seeing some freaky LSD shit."
"That drug…where did you get it from?" John asked her.
"Hey it's Cesar!" a guy grinned to my left. He high fived me and kept on going. I shook my head, clearly my actions were rather famous around campus. Bugger.
Lily assured us into her bedroom and closed the door.
I looked around, a small gasp in the back of my throat. "Woah," I breathed. Whoever I had assumed Lily King to be…artist was not one of them. I picked up a picture of a woman with the most stunning pair of aqua wings I had ever seen in my wife. She was falling like a comet down to the earth below. "What is this?"
Lily shook her head and sobbed. "It's the same thing over and over and over again. Like I'm falling."
I raised an eyebrow. "Do you think she's like Zed?" I asked. "Like a seer?"
John shrugged. "It's not what's going on here…we need to find out about the drug. Where did you get it? Where did you find the Hell's Fire?"
"Stacey got it." Lily confessed. "But…"
"But what?" I asked her.
"Stacey killed herself yesterday," Lily confessed. "She jumped off the roof."
I paused. "Yeah I don't think so." I looked around the room and frowned when I saw a book of spells sitting on her desk beside her hot pink laptop. "Lily where did you get that?" I asked, picking the book off the table. "Veneficas Libro? Lily where did you get this?"
"What is it?" John asked me.
"It translates into the Witches Book," I answered, handing it to him. "Robert taught me about it. It's a sacred text to witches."
Lily sniffed. "We found it in the basement. They were doing repair work on some powerlines under the house and they found it."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Do you know this is made from human skin, right?"
Lily screamed. "Oh my god!"
"What spell did you read from?" I asked her.
"It's tabbed," she whispered.
I opened the book to a pink note tab and shook my head. "These pages are made from the skin of sacrificed virgins and you put a hot pink tab on it? Fucking collage kids…okay…well are you guy's idiots?"
John looked over my shoulder. "Well that's not good. A summoned ghost and a drug laced with demon blood. What do you want to do?" he asked.
"I'll deal with the ghost," I answered, "you do the drugs. Twelve hours?"
"Twelve hours," John nodded. He got to his feet and left us to go rattle through the girl Stacey's room.
Lily stood and came up behind me. "Who are you people?" she asked me. "You show up out of nowhere, kill some guy in an alley and now you fight ghosts?"
"Ghosts, demons, ghouls, werewolves," I rattled off. I shoved the book inside my satchel and shut it. "So show me exactly where you did this ritual."
Lily took me to an abandoned little graveyard just a way aways from the collage. It was almost dark by the time we got there which in my reckoning was perfect ghost hunting hour. The summoning spell required a few essential ingredients which weren't too hard to find…after three hours of online searching we finally found a shop that would cater to our business.
And the ghost? Turns out unnamed serial killers have a chip on their shoulder.
The moment we arrived at the cemetery there was a cold chill on the air.
She took me to the grave that they girls had performed the ritual on only for me to find his grave unmarked.
"Curious…why did you choose this guy?" I asked her. "It's gonna make it a lot harder to kill him.
Lily shrugged. "I dunno…it was like this was the one we had to use. Stacey picked it. She just said that it called to her somehow."
I shrugged and started to set the stuff up on the ground. Ghost banishments were usually pretty easy, a few herbs, some fancy words and poof, off you pop into the next life. Of if you were me you just touch them and they vanish in a parade of violence and fire.
Just as I was about to start reading from the book before me, I was thrown back, far from the grave.
My head hit the stone with an almighty thud. With my vision blurred I could feel a tug on my soul as Lucifer pulled it down into his domain once again…
Suddenly it felt as though my soul was in the middle of a tug of war.
Opening my eyes, I could see Lily beside me, clutching my hand and struggling to read from the book in my lap.
Liber manes strigae
Spiritus uteri mei
Anima tenebris
Amplectere natos lucem
Amplectere natos pacem
"Woah," I whispered. I'd spent the last seven years of my life studying Latin and all manner of languages but never in my life had I heard of a college student as dense as this one in front of me picking it up like it was the next trend on twitter.
And yes, I know what twitter is.
"Tessa!" Lily screamed as the ghost appeared, wrapping its hands around her throat.
I launched myself at the ghost and he vanished just as I went to touch him. Behind it, I could see Talia watching carefully but she just stood there, neither hindering or helping. I landed on the ground beside bowl that held the ingredients. All I needed to do was light the motherfucking match and get Lily to repeat those words. "THE WORDS!" I screamed. "DO THEM AGAIN!"
Lily nodded and started reading.
Liber manes strigae
Spiritus uteri mei
Anima tenebris
Amplectere natos lucem
Amplectere natos pacem
I lit the match and threw it in the bowl and suddenly it was like an explosion had gone off in my face.
Once the smoke and the dust vanished, I found myself flat on my back beside Lily in the overgrown grass. "You kill ghosts good," I breathed heavily. "Welcome to your first banishment, Lillian King."
"Good to be here," Lily replied, still grinning from the rush.
++++++ Translations according to Google translate:
English to Latin
Ghost of the witches book
Liber manes strigae
Spirit within
Spiritus uteri mei
Soul of dark
Anima tenebris
Embrace the light
Amplectere natos lucem
Embrace the peace
Amplectere natos pacem ++++++